I've made up my mind.

What a simple powerful sentence that is. A choice made. A life direction started. My heels dug in. It is done. It is started. It IS. Short, simple, sweet.

My family, save my parents, have been firmly against my relationship with Will from the start. Ironic since they don't know me at all. They really don't. I blame myself somewhat for that. I will accept my blame in that. I'm afraid of truly being myself around them, so I act differently. I'm much quieter and much more reserved and childlike with them. I pull away and I close up. I don't feel safe or accepted with them. In the five years I've known them, since I didn't know them when I moved here, I've never felt or been truly accepted. I haven't been "family" to them. I'm blood and barely that. That's all I am to them. I'm not trusted, and I don't trust them. It's just the way things are. They aren't loving cuddly people, and I am. We aren't the same. They're materialistic, and I care only about what's inside a person. Trust and honesty means the world to me. They lie and steal and backstab each other just to get what they want.

Maybe it's clearer now why I don't like living here.

The people I feel closest to, who I am open and honest with, are not blood. They're friends. Some of them are people I've never even met. Like Andrew. I'd do anything for that kid, he's like my little brother. If he ever needed anything I'd be there for him in a heartbeat. Angie, my "sister," pregnant with her first baby. We met when I was nine and we're extremely close and honest with each other. But barely ever see each other. I haven't seen her in three years. These people are family to me. And not in any way related except through my heart. And these people know me, they accept that this relationship with Will is what makes me happy, they support me, they fight for me. They are my family.

I've tried to explain to my mother that my family, isn't family. They don't support me. They don't fight for me. They wouldn't do anything for me. They'd shoot me if they thought it'd save themselves, and that's the sick sad honest truth. I hate that. I wish to God we were family. But we aren't.

This might be the hardest choice I've ever had to make. But I had to make it. It's one of those things you can't avoid. My family has been downright cruel to me about Will because THEY decided he's not good for me. These people that don't know me. These people that claim if I'm happy they're happy. I'm happy. They aren't. My parents are happy. My friends, my true family, is happy for me. Everyone that truly knows and loves me supports me. And I hope that they can support this choice.

My choice is simple. And so very complicated. I've chosen to no longer care. I've chosen that the next time someone says something negative about my happiness, I'm done being nice and smiling and letting it roll off my back. It's not their right. They have no right to say I'm not happy, especially when I am. Nothing has happened lately to trigger this, but I had a dream last night. And take some of my dreams very seriously. I won't go into detail but let's just say I woke up in tears. I woke up in tears because I knew it was true and that I did have to make this choice.

Letting them say such horrible things, things I haven't even written in here, will destroy me. It is GOING to destroy this relationship that I hold so dear because I'm LETTING it matter. People only hurt you when you let them. I've let them. I've let them matter when they shouldn't. And you have no idea how painful it is to say that.

Today Will and I had a fight and he asked me something that shook me. What he said was basically, "Why is it when your family acts like jackasses, you push me away?" It hit me right then what I was letting happen. I was letting their vicious comments destroy a future with a man that knows me like no one but God does.

I love him with all my heart. They talk about "knowing" you're going to spend the rest of your life with someone. An explainable feeling. A lightning bolt. A comfort. I've had that feeling with him since the beginning. I've been more honest and open with him then with anyone else. He knows every little detail about me, and I know the same about him because I knew I had to be this open with him to make sure we'd survive. That I had to admit all my flaws from the beginning, that I had to let him know all my quirks, and I needed to know his. That we couldn't let there be these little "surprises" down the road. That we knew each other inside out.

The only way I can explain my relationship with him is to say soul mate. Something I quite honestly never believed in. I prayed for years for a man that would be everything he is. I prayed to be someone's one and only. I wanted them to be my one and only too.

I chose to wait. I waited to love, I waited for sex, I waited to commit myself. I didn't want to waste an ounce of that on someone that wouldn't give the same effort back to me. I'm going to be extremely honest here. I'm a virgin and proud of that. I'm proud that I've waited and didn't throw away something so special on someone that didn't mean much to me. That I didn't have sex for the sake of having it. I honestly had given up when I was sixteen on finding a guy that waited too. I didn't think any existed after that. Every guy I knew had had sex. I just had accepted that as part of life. I wouldn't be someone's one and only. I was wrong. And I hope Will doesn't mind me saying this, I don't think he will, but the fact that he's a virgin too, is such a blessing to me. I'm the kind of person that needs that. And he doesn't mind waiting until we're married too. His words exactly were, at the time I first brought it up, "I've waited this long, what's a few more years?"

I didn't date. I didn't want to get my heart broken over and over by people that I had no future with. And I know me, it'd be impossible for me to date someone without getting my heart broken. Dating just plain out isn't my thing. It's not what's right for me. Going on a date with someone is very serious to me. It's saying you can see a future with that person. I wouldn't date anyone I wasn't friends with and knew first anyway, and all the guys I've been friends with, save Will, I could never see a future with because well, we weren't anything alike. And I've had a LOT of male friends. Most of my friends for the majority of my life have been male. I get along better with men.

When I met Will, everything fell into place in my life. He was someone I was completely comfortable with right away. I felt like I'd known him all my life, maybe longer. I didn't mind talking about personal and embarrassing things with him, and he never judged me, or teased me about serious things. He made me laugh when I was crying and let me cry when all I needed was to cry. He let me yell and scream and throw a fit, then emotionally cradled me after, letting me unwind and breathe. There is no sound to me that's sweeter than his breath on the phone, or the sound of his heartbeat when I lay my head against his chest. He makes me laugh about things I'd normally be furious or distraught over. He makes my problems melt away, he protects me from myself. I do a lot of damage to myself. He made me feel beautiful, before he ever saw my face. And when he did finally see me, I felt even more beautiful.

There aren't enough words to describe what I feel for him. There aren't enough words to describe the simple knowing I have that we're meant to be together. And even though I know that even if I was reading this by someone else, I'd roll my eyes, or shake my head, or say it's not possible, I know that this is right. And if I didn't believe with all my heart that it was, I wouldn't have fought so hard for two years just for the right to say I love him.

I hope, it's my only hope, that the people who love and care for me can trust me to know what's best for me. That they can be happy for me. That they know that I'm happy, and completely in love. I have fought so hard for him, and I'm not about to quit. We have gone through so much, we have hammered out all our personal problems trying to make this work, trying our hardest to keep our relationship alive. What makes me so sure of this love I have, is that it's because we're so far apart. That this isn't a physical relationship, but one based on friendship and trust. That even when I saw him and spent that week with him, that I didn't feel strange or uncomfortable, but that this was someone I'd known all my life.

I have to add that my parents are not part of my problem. The fully support me. I couldn't be in a relationship they didn't support. My parents are a godsend. They've been the only ones in my family helping. They're the only ones that have understood. It's everyone ELSE in my family that's killing me. The rest of my family,they don't know me. They don't care if I'm happy or not. They care about their perception of whether or not I SHOULD be happy.

It's hard because I'd hoped we would be close, but even my parents admit after moving up here, we'll never be close to them. They aren't like us, me and my parents. They're so exactly opposite everything I believe and feel and think. We'll never be on the same page.

My parents are definitely not my problem right now. I love them and they just want me to do what makes me happy, to live my life, even if they don't agree with it. Mom and I have talked about it in depth many times. They just want me to live my life for me, to make myself happy. I love them very much, they've been very supportive.

All I ask of my reader at this moment, is to be happy for me. To trust me. To support me. Because in the next six months, I'll be going through a lot. And I'll need every ounce of support I can get.

I love you all so much. You are all so dear to me. I hope that you'll all understand and support my decisions.