Over the years you learn, grow, and change; and with that comes being able to know who you are and what you want. Relationships, whether good or bad, teach you something about yourself and about other people. Friends will leave, boys will break your heart, and you will carry on.

You learn what you want. It’s okay to be the girl who doesn’t want nor need the head- over-heels smothering kind of love anymore. You tried it a few times and it just hasn’t worked out. So something has to change.

You meet a guy who you can’t help but smile when you're around, but you don’t need his attention or to see his face every day. You are unbelievably happy when you are around him. But you are just as happy and functional without him. You don’t need him around, you want him around. And that is so important for you because you may be comfortable for the first time in your life with letting things go and enjoying the person, not trying to establish a label with them or worrying what the future will hold.

It is healthy to be able to be around a person who helps you to be a better version of yourself, but someone you can be separate from to pursue your life dreams, and him his own. Just to have that person’s encouragement is enough, they don’t have to travel glued next to your side.

It does not mean you don’t care about this person. Becoming satisfied in yourself and doing things for yourself is empowering. You do not have to be dependent on a guy to be in a relationship. It is not weak to be a strong person who knows what they want and does their own thing.

That doesn’t mean you won’t need him and you won’t need his guidance, because the best part of you two is that you are first and foremost friends and you’re going to need his opinion. There are going to be times when you overthink things or are convinced that you must be doing it wrong. Put that out of your mind because everyone needs something different. There is nothing wrong with what you want and how you handle having a significant person in your life. You two are you and that is all that matters, so why worry about it?

Girls our age are so concerned with identifying what is going on and attaching a label to the relationship that we forget what the best part about meeting a new person is: getting to know them. Building a friendship and learning their weird habits, getting to know their personality in its truest form; just being able to see who they are themselves and sharing who you are; being your raw unfiltered self to them.

You are going to keep making mistakes and you are going to keep learning how to get through life, but you are confident for the first time in yourself and you aren’t needy anymore. You’re just surrounding yourself with people who make getting though life way more enjoyable and figuring out who you are along the way.