When I was 18, I fell in love with a boy.

We were on again and off again for over a year. While our relationship status varied over those 13 months we spent together, something never changed; the fact that I was in love with him.

There is a moment in time when you realize you are falling or have fallen in love with someone.

For me, these moments were two separate things.

The first was when we were driving home from a late night arcade date, one of our go tos. You had beat me at PAC-MAN. I made a joke that you owed me and you promised to make it up to me. On that drive, you rolled down the windows, blasted Katy Perry and sang along as loud as you could. I remember laughing like a little kid and smiling like an idiot. That's when it hit me: I was falling in love with you.

The second was when we were sitting in your room one night eating take out, just having a lazy night in. You had picked up your guitar and started playing a song I recognized. It was my all time favorite song, something I had told you over a month prior. At that moment I realized something else: I was in love with you.

These moments are something so sweet, and I would say anyone would be lucky to experience. With that said, there is more often than not a negative end to those; the moment you realize someone isn't the one. For some, that realization ends everything right then and there, but for me, it took weeks after to finally do something about it.

I felt trapped.

The boy I had fallen so deeply in love with managed to snap me out of love in a single message. While our relationship was nowhere near perfect, in fact, it was hardly a relationship at all by the end, he was still one of my best friends.

One night I got a text that said:

"You're the reason I pour vodka in my Baja Blast at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday."

Those words took the wind out of me. At that moment, I knew that even though I loved him with all my being that he was not the one for me.

In the end, I left this boy, but he will always hold a piece of me. He was the first person I had ever loved.

I'm okay with that, because he taught me so much. He taught me that I am worth more than I think, and not to let anyone change that.

While it may not always seem like it, you have the power to see yourself as worth more than a boy telling you-you're the reason he is being self-destructive; you will always be more.

Don't let someone take advantage of you, just to make them feel okay.