I have this small mole on the inside of my left hand. That dot represents the size of Detroit on the Michigan map. When you really look at it, you start to understand the phrase, “the city is so small.” It takes “it’s a small world” to whole other level.

“Some people never left high school.”

That phrase used to sound different when I was twenty. Back then, it felt like an insult — a way of saying someone hadn’t grown, hadn’t seen how big the world really was.

Take Raven Porter, for example. We went to high school together. Back then, she was the on-and-off girlfriend of Jonathan Gray, aka JG.  Funny enough, JG and I also went to Michigan State together. Raven got pregnant our senior year of high school , and she and JG eventually broke up.

The thing is, my friend Mya was also JG’s on-and-off girlfriend in high school and part of college.  Mya and I got even  closer in college, so even though Raven and I clicked, we always kept a respectful distance. 

I was scrolling through Instagram the other day and saw Raven’s page. She’s thirty now — married, with three beautiful kids. Her husband? Another guy we went to high school with. 

Let’s not forget JG, he is now engaged to Tatai Kim, a girl JG and I went to State with. 

It made me think,  some of us are out here searching the world for epic love stories. Flying across states, falling for potential, chasing  alignment. Some find what they’re looking for, but others have spent a decade in cycles of almost heartbreak.  

How lucky was Raven to have found two great loves right where it all began. 

High school, huh? The place where my highschool sweetheart dream was crushed. However the nightmare of Lance began. But that’s another story for another day.

For now, I’m realizing how much life changes — and how much we change with it. We really can’t call it. None of us know what the future looks like, or how it’ll all come together.

There’s no comparison, no timeline that fits everyone. Every story is uniquely written, shaped by who we are and what we need — not by what we think we should’ve become by now.