Not by choice, but because I could not help myself.

[katealicegoaway]

If you had asked me 6 years ago if this was even a remote possibility of my life, I would have said "Well, of course it is! I am totally gonna date him and we'll makey outey all the time." But I would have been joking. Pretty incredible that this is my real life, and that this is really happening.

I feel happy, really. I feel extremely tender. I feel this constant swelling in my heart holding all those big words I'm so sure of, but still scared enough not to say aloud. The truth is, I don't know how this happened, or how it all happened so fast. How this boy and I have magically and manically tumbled into one another... but it's incredible. And I wonder when I'm listening to him talk about his big dreams and his family and his broken ole heart, how I get to be the girl who listens to this voice in a whisper, late at night in the quiet. But then I stop, tell myself the why only matters sometimes... what really matters is what is. And how glad I am for it.

Every single day that I wake up in California, over a year later, I'm still actively glad to be waking up here- actively amazed that I'm here at all. I love that.

Also, I'm getting another tattoo. April 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!