Have you ever heard that Taylor Swift song "Fifteen"?

It is the one she wrote about falling in love when you are 15 years old. The lyrics go, "Cause when you're 15, and somebody tells you they love you, you're gonna believe them. And when you're 15 feeling like there's nothing to figure out, but count to 10, take it in, this life before you know who you're gonna be, I didn't know it at 15."

Wow.

I have never heard stronger, empowering words. Being in love at 15 is such a magical thing. It lives up to the standards; you will have someone who is always there, someone who will always tell you how pretty you are; someone who will steal your heart away. Trust me, I was "in love" more than once at age 15. I was under the impression that to be accepted, to be important, to be special, I needed someone to love me. In my head, that was a boy.

But boy was I wrong.

Listen to me when I say this,you do not need a boy to be happy.You are beautiful and magical and special all on your own. You do not need some punk football player or some frat boy to tell you that. You do not need some boy to pay attention to you.

Hindsight is 20/20, and I wish I had told myself what I know now -- because I was that girl. I was a freshman and I fell in love with a junior. Or what I thought what was love. He was so totally out of my league. I barely could get my hair to stay straight, and he was seemingly perfect. Smart and worldly, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. And soon after I met him, I was under his spell. Looking for him at school, checking to see if he texted me or was on Facebook (because that's what we did in 2011), and he absolutely broke my heart.

For whatever reason, he did have feelings for me (I like to believe that he truly did). We would stay up all hours of the night, discussing life, the future, love, happiness, all the greats of our world. He just got me. Then when the morning began, we spent our days together. The summer after my freshman year was one of the best of my life. Blissful, young love. That is what I was experiencing. But, of course, I was so naïve.

Maybe a week or so before the beginning of his senior year, and my sophomore year, he called me and told me he wanted to come over. That there were some things he said we needed to talk about. I knew exactly what was coming.

And that was when it was over.

He fed me the usual, "It's my senior year, I'm already stressed out" baloney. (And honestly, until now I never understood him -- because senior year is super stressful -- but now I understand the baloney.) But to me, an innocent tenth grader, that broke my heart. He loved me, I thought. I convinced myself he was going to take me to prom, and we were going to go to Clemson together, and live happily ever after. That we would have beautiful babies and take on the world together (okay, okay, cut me a break, I was 15 years old).

So what if we were a year and 11 months apart? So what we shared no interests except music, food, Clemson football, adventures, and movies? But that was it.

And so it was over. My first love ended. And don't get me wrong, it was awful. Uncomfortable. Painful. Strange. Weird. Depressing, even.

But, I learned something beautiful from that beautiful boy, and that is that I do not need love. I did not need someone to buy me food, or take me on dates, or drive me places. I could do all of those things on my own, and I do now.

I let this crazy 16-year-old boy turn my life upside down, and I did not need him to. I gave my all to a boy who changed his mind.

Don't let anyone change their mind.