Let Go.

Growing up is fucking hard. Its all going by in such a blur. Twenty-two, where did that come from? When did I get here?

The points that have led me up to Mitch, my bottom barrel's brother, grabbing me by the face and saying:

"Carly. It's Chris. Chris. You need to let it go."

Where did they go?

It's so hard to be honest with yourself. If I look at myself in an honest light, what I see in the bags underneath my eyes isn't as flattering as the stage lighting of what you want to see.

My synapses are aroused right now. I'm sitting on the back of my porch, staring at the light of the setting sun wrapping itself around the long leaf pines of Carolina. They're swaying ever so gently. They are beautiful.

And you know something else? I suppose I am beautiful, too.

When you begin to see yourself in that honest light... it's all there. But is it harder to accept the flaws or perfections? I'm not quite sure. Both of them come with a bittersweet taste.

I need to let it go.

"Carly, you're a fantastic girl. He thinks the world of you. But he does not love you that way."

I can feel myself breaking free. Breaking into this new life that is building around me, untangling chains and beginning to clasp new ones. It's frightening. But the kind of fear that makes your adrenaline flow so air light through your veins that your senses are heightened and you are aware.

On my back porch, in the dusk of a southern sunset, I am aware. My self is beginning to kick in, ever so slowly. Am I an ego, or an id? It all depends on the moment.

"It's never gonna happen. You know this."

Honesty. Maturity. Objectivity. All the small aches that conjure growing pains. Glass across the skin before your new one sets in.