Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately

The strongest people I know have been overtaken by their weaknesses. They know what it’s like to lose control. The strongest people I know have cried in the shower and in their car. They know loss and guilt all too well. The strongest people I know aren’t bulletproof. They have felt the searing pain of life’s shots. The strongest people I know make the decision every day to wake up and place their two feet on the ground even though they know the monsters beneath their bed will grab at their ankles. The strongest people I know are not strong by definition, at all. They are mistake-makers. They are mess-creators. They are survivors.

If you are lucky enough to have a childhood friend, try your hardest to grow old with them. These friends are a unique, irreplaceable breed. These friends lived through curfews and Polaroid pictures with you. These friends know your parents and siblings because they had to call your house first to speak with you. Your memories are not frozen in time on social media, but live on nonetheless. Most importantly, they remember the person you were before the world got ahold of you, so they have this crazy ability to love you no matter what. They are the living, breathing reflection of where you have been. And so, just when you think you’ve lost yourself for good, they are there to bring you face-to-face with your true self, simply by sharing a cup of coffee with them. As your world grows and becomes larger and more complicated than your backyard, even if you establish a life elsewhere, I hope your childhood friends remain lifelong allies, because mine have saved my life on more than one occasion.

I need to stop renaming the decisions I've made as mistakes just because I wish I could take them back.

You always want one more day. You always want one more picture as the old ones begin to fade. You always want that one final hug to have lasted just a tad longer. You always want the fondness of the remember-whens to outnumber the might-have-beens. You want more years, more months, more weeks, more days, more minutes, and more seconds. You want the happily ever after you always thought you deserved, but the only thing actually promised in this life is uncertainty.

Just because I don't trust you doesn't mean I have trust issues. Just because I won't commit to you doesn't mean I have commitment issues. Just because I watch what I eat doesn't mean I have body image issues. Just because people have left my life doesn't mean I have abandonment issues. Just because I yearn to grow and evolve doesn't mean I have identity issues. I know exactly who the hell I am. (Track Fourteen)

I've read about people who were so sad, they stayed in bed all day. That alone motivated me to want to get up, even if I just moved to the couch. The couch is not the bed.

If you are feeling lost, helpless, down, sad, angry, betrayed, you name it, you can rise from it, you can create from it, you can grow from it. I am living proof the most turbulent year of one’s life could also turn out to be the greatest, more rewarding year, too.

Your life will never be the same, ever, so you can never be the same, ever. Pain will make you stronger, but it will make you a lot of other things first.

The first time my heart broke, I thought back to the day in my childhood when a piece of glass went through my finger after an ill-fated cartwheel. I was eleven years old. My mother and I were in our bathroom cleaning up the wound. She dribbled peroxide onto the cut. It fizzed and burned; I winced at the pain. It needs to burn so you know it’s healing, she explained. That small exchange during my adolescence helped me learn to appreciate the pain pulsating from my broken heart. In spite of the severity of my wound, I knew the healing process had already begun.

I am going to be the woman you fear. my true self. (Track Twenty-Five Remix)

It’s one thing to have a support system in your life to cheer you on during the instances when everyone is rooting for you. However, it’s another thing entirely to look back in your darkest moments and still see them standing in your corner, encouraging you to stay in the ring and FIGHT, when the odds aren’t in your favor and all you want to do is throw in the towel. Not many people in this life will be on your side even when they aren’t on your side. Even less who momentarily will slam doors out of frustration but never actually lock you out. Unconditional love; the definition of sister.

You will heal as long as you don't turn around. Ever. Sometimes even a glance into the past can kill you.

I'm not the one who got away. Late nights and loneliness have built me up in your head...the next time the smell of Chanel fills up a room, and you find yourself reminded of me, try to remember: I never even wore perfume. (Track Thirty-Five)

There are lay ers to loving me. In the beginning, I am quite easy to love. My surface is smooth, my smiles tender. But as time undresses, my insides are revealed to be rough and ragged. It will become awfully difficult to love me. At times, borderline impossible. Many have left; for people would rather see a car accident unfold from afar, than be the shotgun rider. Until you. Only you can see all you see, know all you know about me, and still look at me like this.

You can taste sorrow in salt tears and in the bitterness of spoiled words left in your mouth for far too long. You can hear sorrow in a familiar song. You can hide sorrow behind closed doors and inside screams muffled by pillowcases. You can stick to sorrow as if it were gum in your hair; too mangled to brush out, too jarring to chop off. You can see sorrow in bloodshot eyes and shaky hands. You can get lost in sorrow when it knocks your life off course with no detour signs to redirect you. Most importantly, you can be found in sorrow by becoming a different version of yourself, here, on the other side of tragedy.

I flip through photo albums and see my likeness in someone I can't manage to recognize anymore, even when I squint

There have been nights I’ve shared a twin bed with him and still couldn’t get close enough. Then there have been nights spent in a king bed where I’ve felt as though his annoying ass was still in my personal space. We e b b and f l o w. But there’s no one else I’d rather crash into every night when the tide hits its inevitable peak.

A picture never fully captures the reasons behind why I want to freeze the moment in the first place.

Sometimes you don’t realize you are h o l d i n g yourself together until you aren’t anymore. Suddenly, you’re not the same person you thought you were j u s t m o m e n t s   before. No. You are not okay. You are not fine. But you will be. When I say, you will be okay, I do not mean you will wake up one day and be the same person you were before the pain. Pain changes a person. But, you will discover a new version of yourself. One who has experienced the great sadness that only follows a great loss. One who knows the value of a good cry. One who knows that even after the coldest of winters, spring will still arrive.

To do better, to be better, to make other things better. My whole damn life is my passion project. You think I have big hair; you should see my dreams.

Memories are mere echoes of the actual occurrence.

Imagine the anguish felt by having your very own existence on the tip of your tongue.

The strongest people I know make the decision every day to wake up and place their two feet on the ground even though they know the monsters beneath their bed will grab at their ankles. The strongest people I know are not strong by definition, at all.

I was kind to you because I desperately wanted You or the idea of you (Track Forty-Five Remix)

Where from here? Three pint-sized words shouldn’t be able to pose such a fatal and final question, but alas, they do. If you go right, you can’t go left. Even if you backpedal to take the other route just a second later, your fate will already be altered. It’s this or that, never both. It is a hard pill for me to swallow, but I do believe it is in the navigation that you find your way, and inevitably find yourself. Currently

The new normal is rarely an easy adjustment and never truly feels, well, normal. Let’s be honest. Plan B is never preferred. Detours and alternate routes are never quite as scenic. The darkness of being gifted a second chance is that it means something went wrong in the first place. And yet, I would rather have a few speed bumps slow me down, causing me to spill coffee on my dress, than ever hand someone else the keys to my life.

It’s as if I am wearing hand-me-down memories from a life that doesn’t fit quite right. They were a gift, so squeeze into them. I experience that familiar itch of frustration as I struggle to name the girl in the photo. Imagine the anguish felt by having your very own existence on the tip of your tongue.

The darkness of being gifted a second chance is that it means something went wrong in the first place.

She was so far gone, even her own shadow kicked her when she was down.

If I still have the pieces, why wouldn't I keep rebuilding?