Why I Won't Let My Promiscuous Past Define My Romantic Future

In this moment, I am 24 years young.

I’ve spent a large portion of my brief animation desiring the kind of love I first witnessed while sitting in a movie theater and watching "Titanic" premiere on the big screen.

That being said, I have also spent countless hours battling with immense insecurity, emotional bipolarity and above-average expectations for what I want out of a partner.

Long story short, I’ve always held out for the movie script love story.

In fact, I’ve collected some of my greatest romances on DVD and VHS.

There was the story of the townie waitress who captures the heart of the handsome prep boy who stumbled into her life by complete accident.

There was the jaded intellectual who — despite her greatest attempts to push him away — manages to attract the rough-around-the-edges bad boy who no one can quite figure out.

Being shaped by these notable wise tales, I grew up believing this fairytale ending was not only possible, but also an inevitability.

I radiated on a frequency few could fully comprehend.

I viewed people, places and situations for more than the common eye could see, and I, above all else, was destined to truly live.

Throughout the majority of my youth, I defined living as loving and as being loved in return.

I was confronted with obstacles in my adolescence, and while even now it’s difficult for me to admit, up until this point, life has fallen short of my conceptualized expectation.

My definition of what it meant to live a decent life shifted from romance to reality, from captivation to survival.

As the daughter of a deadbeat dad, I inherited my family's financial woes and sentimental disconnection, so I lost my belief in a happily ever after, after all.

I have since discovered that our lives are based on choice, not fantasy.

More often than not, the endings we deserve are merely a matter of our own roles in them.

And so, the girl who once believed in saving herself for someone special lost her virginity at 17 to a stranger on Halloween, when she was dressed as Alice from "Alice in Wonderland."

That same girl consistently turned her back on the opportunity for intimacy, and chose promiscuity instead.

She f*cked, and she fled.

She occupied her time with boys, who were followed by men she could never genuinely call her own.

It seemed safer this way.

She was granted her ego-driven fix for attention, and she never had to worry about being rejected by someone she actively desired.

To many, she was an enigma.

To others, she was an utterly psychotic bitch.

What they don't know is that this girl was an actress, reducing herself to stories she never intended to tell.

Throughout recent years, I became an unrecognizable protagonist of my own existence, a fabricated character crafted within the confines of my mind.

I allowed adversity to skew my perception of what is, and I let basic fear alter my subsequent behavioral patterns of all that is left to come.

I caved under pressure, and most importantly, I forgot to fall in love with myself.

I forgot that possibility weighs heavier than the past, and choices influence our direction, not the other way around.

I realize that virginity, or the concept of being pure, fresh or unused, has not escaped me at all.

I smile with the divine assurance that my real story has yet to be written.

So, what happens to the little girl who believes in the virtue of true love once she faces life?

She learns from her mistakes, of course.

Sooner or later, she even begins to recite the very memoirs that nearly destroyed her.

She picks up the pen, and she ultimately decides to ink a new future for herself.

She decides that anything is possible.