It's been a long time since anyone has made me question my personal principles and choices, especially what I choose to do with my body and my sexuality. More and more I feel like I've been distanced from the haven that Haverford created for me - although even within that so-called "haven" there was plenty of judgment and passive (or even aggressive!) disapproval.

It comes down to how much I value my choices versus the people I care about, and whom these choices affect. I've long struggled with taking care of myself before others and I really haven't decided on a clear platform - there are exceptions to every rule. The people I've grown to love and cherish are those that I must take care of first, but there are even some of those whom I've hurt in my own careless self-interest. I can attribute that to my youth or immaturity or deeply imbedded insecurities, but only so much. I try not to regret things, but there are some things that I really cannot look back on and say it was worth growing from rather than wishing I hadn't done them at all.

I've just hurt someone I do care about, but who has also caused me significant amounts of hurt based on his own personal choices. I can't say that I ever grew to love him. I daresay it was never leading to that, and I've never been good at accepting that. But now I see that I need to - not because I don't still care about him but because as even he had advised me, I need to take care of myself first.

I know about my insecurities and at times brain-numbing need for affirmation and male validation. I don't think I'll ever truly escape that, which frightens me because of what it implies about my potential future as a girlfriend, wife, mother. I can't wish it away, I can only hope that as I grow older it will become less of an imposition on my friendships and relationships. I hate that it's caused me to lose people who were once close to me, but when it comes to principles that are so intensely personal, perhaps we all need to surround ourselves with those who share them.

This is where I need to find the strength that I know is within me to realize that I can't possibly stay close to everyone who has touched me, and that I can't let someone's tarnished view of me ruin my views of myself. People have different capacities of forgiveness, and I always knew that his was much lower than mine. I need to accept that.

And so I press on.