How you get the girl.

Senior year. That's your big ticket. That's your deadline. But I don't actually think that's when it will happen. I think yall will go to homecoming and you'll expect it to be a big deal and it won't be. Yall will still just be best friends. And that's okay! But eventually (and I think this may have already started to happen) she will think of you in a different way. She will then proceed to ignore it or panic. Or panic then ignore it. She will act like nothing's changed. But she will watch you and how you act. She will try to talk herself out of it, and she just might succeed. Not because you're not great but because she doesn't wanna ruin it. She'll realize that what yall have is special and she will want to preserve that. But eventually, she will break down and let you in. Yall will have a wild and beautiful fling. It will be magical and intoxicating. And yall will be happy. 

And then yall will settle into a routine. And it will still be beautiful but it will be less novel. What you worked and dreamed for will become what you have. It will become normal. And because it's no longer a dream but a reality, it will be less. It won't be what you expected. You will get bored and you will move on to the next intoxicating fantasical fling. 

And she will be hurt. She will doubt herself and wonder what she did wrong. She will feel played and wonder if she ever meant anything to you at all. She will have a broken heart and she will cry. And she will try her hardest to not let you know. She won't want you to know she ever cared. She will want you to see her smiling and happy, not hurt and crying. You will wonder if she cared because she will act like she didn't. You will both move on. And just as soon as she stops missing you, you will start missing her. But it will be too late. She will move on and be happy. 

Time will pass and you will both have your heart broken and break hearts. Eventually one of you will call up the other. Yall will cry and say you've missed each other and you miss your friendship. Yall will take another wack at the friendship business. It'll be awkward at first, but eventually you'll succeed. Yall will be friends. You will want her again. She will be too smart to fall for the same goofiness twice. Too smart that is, until it starts all over again. 

Broken pieces.

I know that you know yourself better than anyone else in the world. You see all your flaws and quirks and they make you think less of yourself than other people because you don't see their flaws. You only see what they want you to see. We are all insecure. We each have things we want to hide. None of us are completely comfortable being our true selves. Even those of us who are comfortable being ourselves have moments of doubt and weakness. None of us is perfect but we see other people as perfect. We don't see other people as complex people. John Green taught me that. We are so much more willing to forgive others than we are to forgive ourselves. We try not to let people see our flaws. But we have to let SOME people in. We can't go through this life without doing so. These people have more power than they even realize. Because we let them see our broken pieces, they have the power to build us up because of them, or destroy us because of them. We are more willing to believe them than our own hearts. That's why we must be careful when people share their secrets and broken pieces with us. They trust us to help them not to make them feel worse. We have more power than we realize, we have to decide: Are we going to use that power for good? Or are we going to crush them?