There is a hill just north of my apartment that overlooks the ocean. It juts out, right beyond the edge of someone’s driveway and gives you a view of the beautiful, southern California coast. At any given hour, you can see elementary schoolers running on the playground below, or tiny boats bobbing on the water’s surface like children’s toys. Depending on the weather, you can barely distinguish the ocean from the sky, all a crystal blue or a hazy gray fading off into the distance.

If you look north, you can see thousands of tiny houses, people milling about like ants, miniature cars with their spinning on the coastline roads. If you squint, you can see La Jolla and the cliffs reaching out from the shore, and just inland, the airplanes taking off.

This hill is one of my favorite places because it makes me feel so small, yet so connected. Such a huge world, and open ocean, limitless possibilities and endless places to explore.

And I love knowing that I’m a part of it all.

It’s one of the places where I feel grounded, where I feel safe, where the world stops spinning, just for a moment. It’s where I’ve found myself.

It’s where I want to take you, one day, when I let you in.

See, you’ll know I’ve fallen for you when I want to show you my secret places. When I want to share the most precious spaces of the earth with you. When I want to bring you into where I’ve called home, where I’ve felt safe.

There are quiet roads and abandoned park benches where I’ve sat and poured my heart out into journals. There are patches of grass where I’ve picked flowers and watched the sky turn from yellow to red to purple as the sun dipped behind the clouds. There are alleyways and highway turn-offs with graffiti that I’ve studied. There are restaurants where I’ve hidden in corner booths, sipped cold tea, and watched cars rush by. There are sandy beaches where I’ve listened to the sound of the waves and began to heal.

There are so many pieces of my heart that I will unveil to you as we wander. So many parts of me that you will only understand when you’ve been there, when you’ve touched the earth.

When you’ve let flower petals slide through your fingers, or your toes scuff in dirt. Or when you’ve closed your eyes and let go, let me in. As I let you in.

You will only truly know me when you’ve been to all the places I claim as my own. And when I love you, I promise I’ll take you. I promise I’ll bring you in, take down those walls, and let you share my homes.

I promise I’ll show you my past and my scars. I promise I’ll show you where I’m hurting and where I’ve healed. I promise I’ll tell you stories, tell you what I’m thinking, share the inner-workings of my mind, as we watch the sun dance across the sky.

I promise that one day I won’t be guarded.

One day I’ll take you to all the places that mean the most, and let you feel them. I’ll let you break and reshape along with me. I’ll let you know who I am when I’m all alone.

I’ll let you love that girl.
And I’ll let her love you right back.