If you're up at 4am you're either in love or lonely and I don't know which is worse. I've had this etched in my brain since I was 15 years old. I snarked at the idea that being in love is harder than being lonely. It's so easy to be in love! I fall in love with something new everyday. However, after my first semblance of a relationship I started to get it. It's hard being involved with someone who can walk away so quick. Everyday I make sure to be in contact with my boyfriend. I know that I love him. He even told me he loved me first. It felt so refreshing — to have someone more scared to lose me than I am to lose them. Opening up and being vulnerable never felt so easy because it was with someone I felt I could really trust. Now, here I am. Nothing has changed since when I first opened up to him. He has done nothing to make me think otherwise. All of my relationship trauma is from watching other people's relationships fall apart so quickly and without any notice. Or from watching one of my best friends cheat on his girlfriend because she was so trusting. He told me he knew he could do it because she would never second guess him telling her he was hanging out with the guys for a night. I feel like all relationships that are 50% me are ticking time bombs rather than a slow and steady growth. I find myself not asking for things to not explode in my face but rather for it to not happen so soon. I feel true happiness with him and it scares me. I don't feel comfortable allowing a person to have such a hold on my life. But I know that I need to start somewhere. So I lay awake trying to fall asleep, longing for the days when I felt lonely, and the only person there to break my heart was myself.