This doesn’t happen in my life. Laying in bed on the 12th was fantastic. In my 28 years I have not ever felt as at peace as I did in that moment. I’ve never been as open and trusting of the universe. I’ve never been as open to life and possibilities as I was right then. I have NEVER been as happy as I was in that moment. Serotonin inducing drugs included. There was not one thing I would have changed about my entire life if it is what has lead me to that very second with your arms and legs entangled in mine, and your lips grazing my cheek — the kidlet laying next to me as I held her, too. I’m willing to accept all the pain, suffering and hurt of the past because of that one small moment.

I am allowing you to see me. I’m allowing you to view me in an unshielded light. I am outside of my comfort zone and have marched 50 miles past it. I am allowing myself to look at you with the eyes of a child. When I look at you, my heart skips several beats. My mind joins it as if to say “Welcome Back to Jr High!”. Your eyes have a soft light that sparkles when you laugh. I love it. You fascinate me. You intrigue me. I want to know more about who you are. I want to dissect you, I want to know what makes you tick. I’m like a young Leonardo DiVinci as I watch you. As I talk to you I’m full of wondrous questions [which I am overly cautious to ask], and I stand before you with no judgement to your past,  or your future. I want to see you.

I have lived through a world of emotional torture and pain. I have handed my heart over a few times to have it ran through a cheese grater before handing it back to me. While I have only ever had 4 relationships ever – I approach a lot of people with skepticism at first. I take weeks, or even months to get to know them enough to decide if I want to stand before them. To decide if there is a possibility of a physical, emotional, and mental match. So far, I’ve only had the option of aiming for two out of three. Once I decided that I’m willing to stand before them – I still only let them see a little bit at a time — and I never let them completely through because I can see the hurt coming miles ahead.

But not with you. With you, I want to stand before you and let you see me. In my entirety.  I want you to see the whole of my heart. I want you to feel its capacity for love. I want your hands close to mine to feel the energy rushing through. I want to press my body against yours and feel your heart beat. As imperfect as I am, I want you to see the perfection in me. I want you to be the one to appreciate my odd sense of humor and quick-witted one liners.

The trouble is that while I’m viewing you with a childlike place of innocence, with love as respect and trust [and yes, I'm aware you can't see that trust because I am guarding your ability to see that somewhat, there were no guards that night] — I don’t feel that you are viewing me from that same place. We all have flaws. We all have different things about ourselves we worry about when it comes to meeting new people. The only thing that is causing me to put up a guard and to balk is your early desire to not recognize, or at least stop and take the time to enjoy my perfection in who I am.

Every one of my tattoos has a deep meaning to me. Every single piercing (with the exception of the septum) was thought out from an artful perspective. They are a part of me. I love the feeling of a needle sliding through my skin. I love the rush of adrenaline that follows, and I wear each experience with pride. My pride, love, and self-respect grows with each one.

I love the way the light bounces off the three pieces of crystal in my face, and for somebody who was so shy and so quiet her entire life – hidden, and unseen and unnoticed – and dislikes people being near or close to her, I absolutely LOVE the people that it has brought into my life. From the 80 year old women in the grocery story complementing my look while discussing how she’s originally despised her grandsons tattoos and thanking me for giving her a new lease on them, to the 40 year old man in the toilet paper aisle at Target pulling me aside to ask about the tattoo’d eyebrows – and if they hurt. He, like countless others thanked me for being myself, unequivocally.

I  love going through the drive thru and having my day brightened by the person taking my money complimenting whichever feature they like best. I know its real, because they see me and the joy in their eyes is a sparkle. For years people would hand me my soda through the window and the passing remarks were casual and heartless. I have opened up a world that is letting me begin to trust it again. The map I follow may not appear to match yours, but there isn’t anything wrong with that. We can’t all have the same map.

I know who I am. I am happy with who I am. I may not completely be happy with the place that I am in, but happiness is really just a choice anyway. And there, recognizing that I am perfectly happy with who and what I am. Yes, I want more out of life. I want everything I stated above in the first few paragraphs. That is the only thing I am missing. A best friend I can trust through anything. Somebody to laugh at my jokes. Somebody to ride 40 miles on  a weekend with, just because.

And so, I feel that with the changes you are asking of me — having known me for far less than two months, and seeing me only once able to stand before you with nothing to hide — you are not really opening your eyes to see the valuable amount of wisdom contained within my soul. You feel you are here to help me, but what if its the opposite? Perhaps even we’re just meant to enjoy the childlike “wonder of the Universe” without over analyzing. Part of me feels your energy to change me is just your way of hiding parts of yourself… from me, but also from yourself. That is just a hunch, however. I have no supporting evidence.

I am learning to walk with my head held high. My metamorphosis over the last year and a half has helped me achieve that to a level I can’t begin to explain. I can’t tell you how, much I love, respect, appreciate and even slightly admire the person who helped bring me here to who I am today.

I trust my instincts. I trust my intuition. I have striven over the last 10 years to dramatically increase my logical ability and understand my world in a logical and linear fashion. But in the end, when push comes to shove – my instincts have never failed me.

Love Me. Don’t Love Me. Hold my hand and let me walk beside you, or watch me walk away. It will pain me deeply to walk away because I’ve never met anybody like you, but it will pain me more to compromise my values, my morals, my beliefs, and my ethics and myself if I didn’t.  I’m not saying I’m not willing to slowly modify – lets face it, of course I am. I’m human – we all modify over time. But I am saying I can’t just jump on USS Destroy Eternity without knowing her goals either.

My newest tattoo will be for my grandmother — I found it just before she died and was hoping to have the chance to show it to her, but I didn’t succeed.  On one side it has an owl [her favorite] and it says “Use Your Head”; the other side has a compass [as my grandma and grandpa are my lifes guides] and reads “Follow Your Heart”.

And so in this, I will.