because that is the way that it is, you know?

  life is riddled with endings

  and change

  and insufferable pain

  but the other truth about endings

  is that they do not come without a counterpart

  every time my world has ended

  it has also begun

  so if i were to talk to 16 year old me

  i would look her in the eyes and say i believe

  that your world is collapsing

  that you will never be the same.

  it will collapse many more times

  but the sun will rise the next day.

  you will do this again

  and again

  and again

  and maybe one day

  we won’t speak so much of the end

  and we’ll say

  my world began when i was 16

  and again when i was 18

  and briefly this morning when i rose from my bed

  you were poetry

  before anyone wrote you

  into their narrative

  you were art then

  and you are art now

  i wish you would stop hiding

  the parts of you

  that you think i won’t love

  i traveled back in time today

  i saw myself broken

  on a bathroom floor

  and i broke again

  but this time it was different

  this time it was not my pain that broke me

  it was the overwhelming love i felt

  for the girl who thought she was worthless

  i can’t wait until the day she realizes

  she means everything to me

  everything

  i love the way you are unashamed of your humanity

  i love the way you wear your worst days boldly

  and you wear your best days humbly

  i am the advocate of rainy days

  i am the advocate for people

  who cry almost as easy as they breathe

  i am the advocate for the clouds that cover the sun

  i am the advocate of the color gray

  i went to the site of an airplane crash that happened in the 1980s

  no one survived the crash

  i sat in the seat where someone

  had the most devastating day of their life

  i cried tears for the fear that a stranger felt

  i’ve never held more love for someone

  who didn’t even live in my time

  for a moment

  i merged hearts

  with a person who became a ghost

  before i even became a person

  nothing but agony

  could so easily

  bridge the gap

  of space and time

  that is why

  if i had the choice

  i would never trade my pain

  my misery

  is the reason i can feel you

  and yours is the reason

  you can feel me

  you thought my pain

  was the most interesting thing about me

  no one ever wanted to know

  the part of me

  i tried so adamantly

  to hide

  don’t write what they want to hear

  write what would destroy you if you didn’t

  the most beautiful and crushing part about this life is that it comes with endings. although that can be the most devastating realization, it can also be the most liberating truth. it means that no matter how big what you’re facing may seem, there will be a time when this shadow passes over.

  the darkness is only an eclipse of the light.

  you can try to ignore the past

  but you can’t ignore

  the way it changed you

  you are a creature of your scars

  like it or not

  i think it took me so long to get better

  because i got tired

  fighting to the top of the mountain

  just to fall back to the bottom.

  happiness stopped feeling like something

  i should fight for.

  the best things in life come with a fall,

  the mountains come with risks,

  love comes with loss,

  happiness comes with grief.

  regardless we must learn

  not to deprive ourselves of the good in life.

  we must not stand in the sun

  anticipating rainstorms.

  life will never be consistent.

  the instant we embrace that

  we are free.

  maybe the only consistency we need to embrace

  is the surety of change.

  i’ve decided to stop putting my faith in happiness.

  rather i choose to believe there is balance

  in the way the good and the bad shake hands.

  i choose to believe there is hope

  in the change i don’t understand.

  the thunder isn’t always turbulent

  it is also peaceful

  i’m unwrapping my past

  like cruel gifts packaged in brown paper

  i’m pulling my trauma

  out of the boxes i’ve been carrying it in

  i’m setting it all out in front of me

  so that i can cry over it one more time

  before i set it all on fire

  there are some doors in our minds that we keep locked and there are some doors that we build brick walls in front of because locks aren’t enough. you are one of those doors that i don’t even acknowledge anymore because you’re so far hidden behind the cement blocks i stacked hoping to forget. i may have pushed the memory aside, but emotion has a memory of its own. my heart can’t unlive losing you or unlock unloving you. even if i no longer make you the object of my pain, the pain finds its way. seeping through the cracks of the walls in my room and threatening to destroy new relationships in my life. so i’m working on renovating. i’m taking sledgehammers to my safety walls and i’m watching my comfort fall. even though it’s scary, i’m allowing myself to remember it all.

  i’m learning that the location where healing starts

  is the place where my peace falls apart.

  there are mornings

  when i realize that life can be a process of exploring

  rather than a process of finding

  it can be a wandering without a certain destination

  it can be absorbing sunlight without expectation

  it can be dancing for no particular reason at all

  perhaps my purpose was always to be here

  not to discover the reason why

  i always do my best thinking on airplanes

  something about

  walking the wire of mortality

  something about

  hanging from the sky

  supported by only the wind

  makes my mind insist

  that in this moment

  i become a philosopher

  perhaps we should all spend more time

  on the edge of disaster

  not every move you make must be monumental

  the key to progress is persistence

  not in the magnitude of your movement

  comfort can be dangerous.

  it keeps you trapped,

  hidden from change.

  what if all you ever wanted

  is just outside in the storm

  but you are too comfortable

  to move?

  proceed from a point of simplicity

  collect the small things that are good

  and with seashells and wildflowers in hand

  you can conquer every storm

  we tend to use the word failure

  as a pronoun far too often.

  you are not your mistakes.

  perhaps the worst disease that plagued me was the inability to see past the present.

  the sun was always coming back

  i just couldn’t see it through the night.

  sometimes we don’t need someone

  to bring back the sun

  sometimes we just need someone

  to sit with us in the rain

  i would let you ruin me

  and that’s the only way

  i know how to say

  i love you

  i spend a lot of time crying on airplanes

  and i think that speaks to

  my addiction to movement

  and my tendency to leave shards of my soul

  everywhere i go

  we walked through the same disaster

  but we did not emerge the same.

  i became strong;

  you became bitter.

  it has never been about what we went through,

  but rather what we are made of.

  you did not become who you are

  without being who you were

  ~be kind to your past self

  after everything,

  what i’ve learned

  is that i will never again beg anyone to love me.

  i will not beg anyone to stay.

  i will not exist for the purpose

  of obtaining anyone’s attention.

  i will stop treating every conversation like a fight

  to gain approval for who i am.

  it’s okay if not everyone likes me.

  just because one person is not impressed,

  it doesn’t deem me unimpressive.

  just because one person doesn’t see my worth,

  it doesn’t deem me unworthy.

  just because one person doesn’t fall in love,

  it doesn’t deem me unlovable.

  i’ve realized that setting an expectation for other people often leads to disappointment.

  so i’m setting the expectation exclusively for me.

  i do not ask twice for love.

  i do not allow the people who walked away from me to take my worth with them.

  i exist in the most authentic way i know how

  and wait patiently

  for the people who want the real me.

  the word “powerless”

  used to make me feel weak

  now my inability to calm the ocean

  or capture the wind

  doesn’t make me feel weak

  it makes me feel free

  one of the most difficult lessons i’ve learned

  is that not everything that you love

  is meant for you.

  being in love with someone

  and being right for someone

  aren’t the same thing

  the same applies to everything in life

  you will fall in and out of love with a million different places, sunsets, colors, laughs, voices, books, movies, music.

  and you will realize

  that some loves stay for a lifetime

  and some stay for a little while.

  some places are your forever home

  and some are temporary.

  some voices are constant

  and some will echo in your heart forever.

  both of these are real

  both of these are love

  and all of it is life.

  dear cloudy days,

  i never hated you.

  i needed you.

  i’m in love with the seasons

  i’m done fighting the change

  i’m buying flowers for the storm clouds

  i’m waltzing with the wind

  i’m getting lost in the eye of the storm

  i’m melting with the snow

  and swaying with the trees

  i have found

  that the most wonderful moments in my life

  the most vibrant sunrises

  the people whose names

  are permanently carved into my story

  have all come to me as a surprise.

  so often

  the things that feel

  out of my control

  turn into the memories

  that i never want to let go

  i don’t worry about the weather anymore

  when it rains, i dance

  when the sun shines, i dance

  through it all,

  i will dance

  the beauty of letting go is this

  by loosening your grip

  on something you were certain was meant to be

  you’ve made room for what actually is

  inevitably change will produce grief.

  i look back at that person i was and i don’t feel like i know her. such a peculiar feeling to be simultaneously connected and disconnected from myself. at times, i miss her as if she isn’t a part of me. i wish for her back as if her eyes are not the ones on the other side of my mirror. i watch old videos of her as if they are a funeral composition.

  how peculiar it is,

  the way growth and grief hold hands.

  i asked the stars

  “what do i write about

  if nothing has destroyed me lately?”

  the cosmos replied

  “why do you think you must be destroyed

  to be worthy of your voice?”

  if the mountains crumble,

  mend them with your words.

  if the sea is unsettled,

  speak for her.

  to carry another’s brokenness

  on your tongue

  is often far heavier

  than carrying your own.

  you will always have a story to tell

  when speaking for more than yourself.

  i took a walk

  on a bridge composed of stars

  and each footstep

  was fueled by flames.

  feet on fire,

  i finally remembered

  how precious it is

  to live.

  i hope never again

  to forget

  how rare it is

  that the universe

  shares itself with me.

  surrender

  to

  change

  i lived in a place

  where the sun shone all the time

  and i cried

  because someone needed to bring

  the rain

  if not the sky

  humans are a lot less concerned with the fact

  that we are all going to die

  and a lot more concerned with

  whether or not they are falling in love.

  i think i love that about us.

  you don’t need to micromanage your healing.

  the sun rises each day

  whether you ask it to or not.

  healing isn’t ritualistically forcing yourself

  to feel something before you are ready.

  it isn’t a process of checking boxes.

  it is simply absorbing the sunlight when it hits you

  and not fighting the rain when it comes.

  it is embracing the reality that no one is

  waiting on you

  to fix yourself.

  you have been,

  and always will be,

  whole as you are.

  the decision you must make

  is whether

  to fill the gaps in your life

  with hope

  or despair.

  it is all a balancing act:

  being hard and being soft

  you must learn to allow yourself to feel things

  without allowing your feelings

  to rule the way you react.

  you must learn to forgive yourself

  but hold yourself accountable.

  you must know when to give yourself rest

  and when it’s time to work.

  you must learn to love the things about yourself that you can’t change

  while reshaping the things that you can.

  i think so many of us have it wrong:

  being soft doesn’t make you breakable

  and being hard doesn’t make you indestructible

  being both makes you balanced.

  there is something raw and freeing

  about simply reacting to the universe

 

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