at it’s heart, to all the boys i’ve loved before is a love letter to what it means to be a teenage girl. in all of its painfully introspective, pastel-pink glory. it’s about personal identity; growing up and becoming less fearful of change; the people we let into our lives (and also the people who leave); and learning to live a perfectly imperfect life.

Parental wisdom tells you to avoid strangers. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t accept candy from strangers. Don’t get into a stranger’s car. Well, that last one doesn’t apply anymore.

The rise of consumer-facing products in the stranger-sphere have been well-documented and thoroughly discussed. The mechanics and implications of ride-sharing like Lyft and Uber and home-staying like Airbnb and relationship-building like Tinder and Bumble and even service-providing like Thumbtack or Handy. These are marketplaces driven by supply and demand for and because of strangers.

Everything we do offline has always been with strangers: the cashier at the grocery store, the driver in the cab, the receptionist at the check-in desk. The invitation here is different. We are inviting people—complete strangers—into our homes, and more profoundly, our lives. We let them take up space and time, even for a brief moment, and that’s important.

frost still clings to the orchard. ice hangs from the branches; it weighs down the weathered wooden skeleton of trees that once stood tall. the leaves have long fallen, the birds departed. nothing left but the howling winds and crunch of ice beneath worn boots.

in the august sun, the apples were sweet and tart. they tasted like late summer miracles and found themselves baked into pies and boiled down to ciders.

i love winter. i love the way the frost clings to surfaces with an unyielding attachment, the way the cold works its way into your bones and won’t let out. winter is bitter and unrelenting, and it has a sinister and unsuspecting way of creeping up on you. a biting chill that rattled your insides and stayed past its welcome.

We begin again. Another year, another decade, and another blog.