Disclaimer: Every name mentioned in this post is just a pen-name.

Dear beloved readers,

Real life can be such a drag, thank god for Netflix for providing us things such as silly little rom-coms that will certainly give us the reality break we deserve, and of course UberEats for providing delicious tacos. Since the infamous The Kissing Booth I wasn’t putting too much faith in Netflix movies because honestly, aside from Noah Flynn being freakishly hot the movie didn’t do much for me. But today I am going to talk about To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before the new Netflix movie that apparently everyone is obsessed with. Usually I take a while to get into whatever everyone is gushing about, but thank god I didn’t with this one, because let me tell you, it’s really that good.

Feel good movies are there first and foremost to make us relate to the characters and feel good about ourselves just because it gives us the sense of not being as alone in this big blue Earth as we think we were. And I gotta say, I related to the main character of this movie, the queen, Lara Jean, way more than I thought I would. Right away I realized that personality wise we didn’t have a lot of things in common, aside from both of us being hella romantic and into reading novels and projecting our feelings in them, I didn’t think I would even like this one. But it’s the good’ol cliché we are all deep down inside obsessed with and it was just as good as any other teenage movie we grew up watching, but it did make me think about my love life and all the people that went down that hole and you know…

So this one is not to all the boys I’ve loved before, this is just about them, all six of them. Well, since we live in a heteronormative society, my first ever love was a little boy from kindergarten named Victor who would always wake me up with a kiss – on my cheek!!! – whenever I was pretending to be Sleeping Beaty, and trust me when I say that did happen a lot more often than I am proud of. Okay, now that we are at it, maybe love is too much of strong word, I certainly wasn’t in love with some guy who probably smelled like boogers and I probably only liked him because well, I didn’t know back then that a princess can be just as fine without a prince. Thank god we grow up…

My second “love” and well, I guess I did love him, or so I thought I did, was a guy named Vinci and we met at first grade and he was just so mean to me and in my head, that meant love. Which, again, only proves how fucked up I was. I remember one time we were going on a school trip and I am pretty sure it was my first ever school trip and he, I don’t know why because when I say bitch hated me, he hated me, accepted to sit next to me, and my best friends since age six Henry, who is still my best friend until now – in fact we just had coffee today – was pissed at me for not sitting with him. But let me tell you another thing I remember about that trip, Vinci was an asshole, and fun fact, he grew up being an asshole and probably will die one too. So, so far in my life, in this trip through the memory lane I am doing right now, it’s safe to say I do have a terrible taste in men…Or at least I used to have.

Next in line comes Isaac. Oh, boy Isaac was a personified headache in my life. He was the first boy I could swear I’ve ever loved, and this little crush lasted years, tons of love letters which were never sent, almost my friendship with one of my best girl friends, and lots and lots of tear, honestly enough tears for me to know that I never want anyone like that again. Isaac was so goddamn full of himself and I found that so attractive, again, problematic af. But he was also the first guy I kissed, and held hands with, and waited patiently to text me back. He was also the first guy to break my heart and to hurt me so deeply sometimes I still wonder how my 12 years old self didn’t lose her mind. But I learned a lot with good ol’ Isaac, and I learned even more when said good friend of mine did date him a little later in life and proved to me, to us, that Isaac was never worth shit. I guess we can all agree that all those boys are not great, but really, what can we expect from kids? Not to excuse any boy’s behaviour but boys do take a lot longer to become decent people than us, and I mean, of course we will be stupid, and of course we will get hurt! It’s life! It’s part of growing up! I still remember laying in my bed, crying like the world was gonna end because he broke up with me and thinking the pain would last forever.

But good thing people only die of heartaches in movies and books. Because when my fourth love came, and this story you guys know pretty well, the pain was way more intense, and it ached like never before, and it made all those other past lovers feel like a distant, barely there memory. But nothing in this life will hurt for that long, and a week later I proved that to myself as I was so in peace with how everything turned out that I wondered if I truly did love him, but the excruciating pain in my chest when he kicked me out of his apartment told me, bitterly that I really did. Truth being told, John wasn’t an asshole, he was just someone who made a lot of poor choices in his life and didn’t know his limits and ended up making a lot of mistakes and hurting me in the process. None of his mistakes were worst than mine, that was loving him, and above that, trying to be for him what I thought he needed. People say love is never in vain, but pouring something to someone who sure as hell doesn’t deserve it, can be a little in vain. So yes, I did love him, and I wanted everything with him. John? He loved to see me naked and to do illegal substances behind my back. And as painful as that was, again I learned something with it. Because it doesn’t matter if your relationship lasted five weeks or five years, like everything in life you learn from them, even if the lesson you get is to never go near a junkie ever again. You in fact, learn so much from them that you start to learn about yourself, even if at the time the only thing you can do is blame you for being a fool and for trusting people, you become more wise, you know?

And just like that love number five came. Like the first droplet of rain in a late summer afternoon, I didn’t see it coming at all. It happens every once in a blue moon, when you suddenly seem to be able to see things a little better and feel things a little more intensely and when I noticed it was a blurred between the lines of stories I wrote, and poems I’d read, and someday something clicked inside me and oh, I think I am in love with Colin. If only I figured that one out three years earlier… Truth is, timeline wise, he is before John, but because I do have a thick skull and I am terrible at reading things that are in front of my face apparently, I didn’t know. I didn’t know that once upon a time we were actually ridiculously in love. My friends knew, hell my mom knew, but no one ever bothered to tell me. It was only in the process of writing my second book, that everything clicked and I just knew I missed out on my shot with him, and by the time, I thought I also ruined my shot with my one true love. But the thing, as the drama queen I am, I always think that my mistakes are way bigger than they are. So of course, not only I fucked up the situation the best way I could, but I also almost truly ruined the only thing Colin will ever be to me, and that is one of my best friends. He may be the true love of my life in so many ways, and I accept him as my best friend and my soulmate in a way. Because it’s true, I am so young, and I honestly believe in that old cliché that what’s meant to be will happen. And after what seemed like forever, and this time actually felt like forever went by, I came in peace with the fact that maybe it won’t be, and if never happens it is okay, because I still get to have my good friend with me. And that realization came to me not only a month ago, if I am being honest.

What I am trying to say with all of this is that, what Lara Jean says in the movie, that the scary part about love and relationships, is opening up to people, letting them in, and risking losing everything and hurting like never before. That really is the hard part. That does suck, and by the time every single one of these boys hurt me, and I did hurt them too, in some way, I just wished it never happened, I wish I could just vanish this whole thing from my life. But growing up is about being able to look at those things and not only see the negative times, but look at them, actually look at them and understand why all of that had to happen, all of that had to go down like it did, and only then be able to shrug it off and keep going. Because life doesn’t stop for anyone, specially not for a broken heart. And sometimes you will be hopeless, and maybe you find yourself a little depressed, and maybe you will decide to go to a Mc Donald’s in the middle of Manhattan and you will find someone, and he might be the one, and he also might not be the one, but you give him a shot, because even after five fail attempts, love will never give up on you and will manage to find you in the weirdest, most random places. And when it finds you, embrace it. Because the only thing worse than a list full of bad love experiences, is a list with no loves at all.

I hope you all got the hint and if you didn’t, well I guess I will have to tell you all about it later…This was way too much fun and I didn’t think it would be good like that at all, and honestly I hope you all sorted all your past loves in a list like this, and if you did, tell me about that! Stay out of trouble but if you don’t – oh my god, just tell me all about it.

– Your Girl on the Go