I love when people give me nicknames, even when I say I hate them. There aren’t a lot of fun, cute ways to shorten my name, but there’s still something so intimate when someone finds a way to, anyway. I like the feeling that someone knows me so well that we become an informality; I like knowing that they, and they alone, have a word that stands just for me.

I love when people ask me about my life. It’s funny, because I don’t really like talking about my life, but I like that people care enough to want to know about it. I always act awkward when they do, though, because I never know how to answer them, because I don’t really know what I should open up about and what I should keep to myself. I like the people who keep asking me questions till everything spills out.

I love when people open up to me, too. I like to listen to their passions, their stories, their happiness and their regrets. Sometimes I act like it’s a burden that people overshare with me, but for the most part it makes me so, so happy. I like knowing I’ve seen pieces of people they don’t show to anyone else.

I love surprises. But doesn’t everyone pretend like they hate surprises?

I love things that make me cry. Movies, books, Internet posts, sometimes even people. It sounds counterintuitive, but I love anything that makes me feel something that overwhelming, so much that it shakes me to my core. They move me.

I love that there are people in the world who completely throw themselves into love. I’m not really like that, and I know I always roll my eyes and say people like that are annoying, but I’m glad they exist. I think the world deserves little things like that.

I love 2 Chainz. Yeah, I’ll admit it.

I love that people tore me down in the past, because I feel like I finally know what firm footing feels like and it’s going to take a hell of a lot more to tear me down again.

I love when my friends give me shit. Sure, it can be annoying as hell and I’m not always good at standing up for myself, but for some reason the way they pick on me makes me feel loved. In any other situation, they’re always the first people to stand up for me, even if it’s just to myself.

I love Bud Light. Yeah, OK, fine, it tastes like shit, but the smell always reminds me of my childhood.

I love that there are some things in life that always stay unspoken. It drives me crazy that we can go for months, years, a lifetime without ever confronting it, but a little part of me likes the idea that there are secrets between us that have never been put into words.

I love silence, even though sometimes I feel the need to fill it. I know I talk too much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like the way the world feels when it grows still.

I love that the future is so uncertain, even though that’s the very reason I lie awake at night, panicking.

I love that I don’t know everything, that I’m not always right, that I’m just as lost as everyone else in the world, and that maybe they all just pretend to hate these things too.