A Gentle Reminder

Instead, love them without attachment. Love the lessons they taught you. Wish them well every single time you think about them. Miss them, but do not ache for them to come back. If the people in your life left because they were not ready to value you, or love you, or be there for you, do not wish for them back, do not ask for them to be more than they can be at the moment. Wish for them to figure themselves out. Wish for them to grow. They are on their own journey — a journey you are not a part of. And that is okay. You have to learn that that is okay.

Because at the end of the day, the right people fight for you. The right people show up. The right people care, not only when life is convenient, but when it is difficult and messy and it aches all over.

No one will ever fully be able to understand the internal battles you had to endure just to heal, just to grow, just to make it here today. Be proud of the way you fought to save yourself. Be proud of the way you survived.

Forgive yourself for the way you held yourself back because you didn’t believe in your own potential, because you didn’t believe in your capacity to take up space.

You were never asking for too much. You were simply just asking the wrong person.

At the end of the day, I want to be proud of the way I loved, I want to be proud of the way I placed my heart into the hands of others. I want to be proud of the way I chose vulnerability, of the way I chose tenderness; how I never stopped choosing it no matter what my soul experienced at the hands of being the kind of human being who loved deeply in this world.

Life is a mess - yes, but my god, is it ever a beautiful one

Don’t ever forget that the right people will choose you, they will see you, they will dive into the depth of you, and you will never have to force those connections. You will always be good enough for them. Anything else is not for you.

It is okay to outgrow those who don’t know how to love you.

Maybe right now your journey is about you. Maybe this is the season you are being challenged to be your own savior, to be your own safe place. Maybe right now you are being reminded — that the people who walked away were only ever leading you back to yourself, were only ever leading you here. And here, you are okay on your own. Here, you are rebuilding. Here, you are adapting, and mending, and reclaiming all of the pieces you let them walk away with. Here, you are being kinder to your soul, you are giving yourself the same kind of love you have always given to others. Here, you are not rushing your heart, you are not depending on another human being to fix it. Instead, here, you are doing that on your own. Here, you are healing. When you are ready to put your heart into this world again, do not look for the same kind of love you have experienced; resist the urge to compare the human beings that come into your life to the ones that have left.

It is okay to take your time. We live in a generation that romanticizes moving forward as quickly as possible when it comes to careers and our futures and our success within them. But there is no point in rushing quickly towards a life that will not inspire you or fulfill you.

If someone cannot reciprocate your love, if someone cannot give you what you truly deserve, you have to understand that aching for them to do so before they are ready is a form of self-destruction.

You have to accept that sometimes beautiful things end, that sometimes people leave, that sometimes two human beings don’t beat the odds, and you have to find closure in that.

Do not seek familiarity, do not keep searching for your past in your future. Trust what comes.

When you are not feeling good enough, remember that sometimes the root of feeling not good enough comes from holding yourself to someone else’s ideal rather than your own. Remember that you are the only person who gets to decide if you are good enough. You are the only person qualified enough to determine your value.

Because, at the end of the day — I want to leave this world with a heart that is worn-out and tender all over, a heart that aches from loving, and feeling, and caring in the best way possible. I want to leave this world knowing that I poured love into everything I did, that I crashed my soul into each and every single day, that I tried for something while I was here. At the end of the day, I just want to be proud of the person I have become. I just want to be proud of the way I connected.

The love you deserve will choose you just as confidently as you choose it

You have to believe that your ideas, and your hope, and your being, deserve to take up space.

I hope you have the courage to understand yourself, fundamentally — to open up the deepest, darkest parts of your mind, to unhinge your rib cage revealing the gritty parts of your soul, the parts no one else claps for, and I hope you have the courage to clean them out.

Be proud of yourself for feeling so deeply, appreciate it for what it was, and let that love go off into the world and change others the way it changed you.

You have to chase the things that ignite you. You have to do the things that bring you joy. You have to surround yourself with the people who bring you back home to yourself, with the people who respect you and embrace you in ways that make you feel like you are worthy and accepted and loved.

Maybe the universe fights for certain souls to find one another

Because you cannot fix the people you love. You cannot heal them. They have to do that on their own.

The right person will know how to hold your love. The right person will choose you just as deeply as you choose them. You will not have to quiet the way you care, you will never feel like you are too much. You will not have to beg for the love you deserve. One day, you will be met where you are. One day, you will be someone’s favorite thing, and you will not be confused — you will not feel like you are fighting for someone who isn’t fighting for you. One day, you will understand that it never mattered how tightly you held on to the wrong people, how intensely you tried, because the right people were always going to find you. The right people were always going to stay.

I hope you have the courage to do the hard work. I hope you have the courage to sit down with your demons, to befriend them; to look them in the face and to not feel fear. I hope you have the courage to stop picking or numbing or avoiding the wounds within, and I hope you choose to heal them instead. I hope you have the courage to understand yourself, fundamentally — to open up the deepest, darkest parts of your mind, to unhinge your rib cage revealing the gritty parts of your soul, the parts no one else claps for, and I hope you have the courage to clean them out. To forgive yourself for what you had to do to kill your sadness. To forgive yourself for the ways in which you didn’t fight for

If you were capable of feeling so much towards those who may not have always been gentle with your heart, imagine how beautiful love will be when it is right — imagine how beautiful love will be when it stays

One day, you will understand that it never mattered how tightly you held on to the wrong people, how intensely you tried, because the right people were always going to find you. The right people were always going to stay.

Forgive yourself for all of those moments you had to protect your energy, for all of those moments you had to make the hard decision to choose yourself, because by staying, and trying to fight harder, and give more, and be more, and fix and fix and save and save, you were only ever depleting yourself to the point of exhaustion.

Maybe this is the season you are being challenged to make amends with your heart, to stand up for the vast ways in which it loves, and cares, and believes in the goodness of vulnerability, and expression, and being the person who softens even when the world is not gentle. Maybe right now you are getting a second chance — to trust in it, and to forgive yourself for giving it away to those who could not value it; but most importantly, maybe right now you are being called to protect it, to find your way back into your tenderness, to find your way back into your soul.