1. take pictures of your friends. take pictures with your friends. take as many pictures as you possibly can. even if they start to get annoyed with you, even if either of you feel “ugly” that day, even if you just took one the other day. because a day is going to come where all you’ll have is pictures and wishing you had more than what you’re left with hurts just as badly as losing them. 2. do the thing that scares you. do the thing that you’ve always wanted to do but have always been too scared to try. don’t force yourself if it doesn’t feel right but don’t be scared to try new things. as cheesy and cliche as it sounds, stepping out of your comfort zone, even for a moment, is worth it. regret is not. 3. it’s okay to hurt. if it hurts, that means it mattered. 4. sometimes, when something breaks, it cannot be fixed. there was nothing you could have done to make them change their mind, nothing you could have said to make them stay. the two of you broke apart, but that doesn’t mean you are broken. 5. heal, mourn, grieve. let yourself feel. don’t try to force the healing, it’ll come naturally, when it’s time. 6. there are going to be days when all you do is lay in bed, drink coffee, and refresh various social media apps. that’s okay. you’re allowed to rest, you’re allowed to do nothing. you don’t have to validate doing nothing. 7. you’re going to face a fear you didn’t even know you had. but you won’t have to face it alone. 8. don’t keep it all in your head. let the bad thoughts out to make room for the good ones. 9. whatever you think you did, whether it be in this life or a past life, to deserve suffering and pain does not exist. you don’t deserve to hurt. you don’t deserve to make yourself hurt. you don’t deserve to suffer. you don’t deserve to make yourself suffer. 10. you’re going to do things, you’re going to make decisions, you’re going to make yourself see things or read things that are going to hurt you. self harm isn’t limited to bruises or bleeding; you’re hurting yourself by caring about someone who doesn’t care about you anymore. that’s not to say that you should stop caring about them, but you should definitely stop checking their twitter account in the middle of the night. 11. you don’t need to look like anyone else to be a certain kind of person. you’re you and you are enough just the way you are. 12. get outside and lose yourself beneath the rays of the sun, escape to a place where it doesn’t hurt as badly as it does inside your house. 13. you’re gonna screw up, but that doesn’t make you a screw up. 14. it’s okay to set boundaries, it’s okay to distance yourself from others. it doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you mean. it’s okay to put your own needs and wants above others. it doesn’t mean you don’t care, but you need to care about yourself first. 15. there was a person you thought you could never live without. and you will be without them. and you will still be alive. 16. you know what will make you feel worse, and you know what might make you feel slightly better – even if it doesn’t work 100%, it’s still better than doing the wrong thing. these choices are yours, so make the right one all of the time. 17. family isn’t always blood. sometimes, family can be the people who choose you and who keep on choosing you, not because they have to but because they want to. this isn’t a family you’re born into, but rather a family you find and create for yourself. 18. home isn’t four walls and a roof over your head, but rather someone that makes you feel safer than any building can. 19. happiness won’t always be so far and few. 20. never underestimate just how healing a car ride with your best friend can be. 21. you matter. you really do. 22. hope isn’t silly and though sometimes slippery, never stop clinging to it. 23. try taking your own advice from time to time. allow yourself to grieve, to be wounded, to cry, to hurt. allow yourself to heal. try to remember that one day, having all of this hope won’t have been for nothing and start promising yourself the things you promise others; that it’s going to be okay, genuinely and sincerely. because it’s the truth. you survived this year, you’ll survive the next.