Just remember that sometimes, the way you think about a person isn’t the way they actually are.

Accept how you feel but don’t let feelings rule you. You are in control. You are not their slave.

Courage, dear heart.

No one stays for you. Everybody stays depending on their need for you.

1. People are going to leave you. Their leaving will either tear you apart from the inside out, or it will mean nothing to you. 2. After people leave, they will either linger around and flaunt their stability in your face, or you will never hear from them again. 3. Those who linger after leaving, they will hurt the most. It will hit you at 3:25 am—because you’ve always hated odd numbers—and you will become nauseated and wishing you were dead. 4. Those who leave, never to be heard from again, will hurt much, much less. There will be times you may feel that you must die to rid yourself of the pain—it will pass. 5. On the nights filled with remorse and numbing-pain, turn your fan on HIGH and burrow yourself under a mountain of blankets. As your body fights for heat and comfort, you will remember that you are alive and you still work just fine. You may just be a little more achey in the mornings. 6. On the nights you feel ‘okay,’ but not ‘alright,’ let out the tears that are pooling in your eyes. Let your makeup smear and your nose get snotty and runny. You will feel better afterward, I promise. 7. When you shake and feel the urge to scream with rage, pop the top off of your angst and let it out. There is no better cure for whitened knuckles. 8. Although it may feel like the end of all happiness, try to remember the life you had before. You took many breaths independently and without them—long before your first encounter—you will take many breaths more; independently and without them. Some may be staggered, but they will even out again, I promise.

We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, ‘I survived’.

If I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room, would you trust it?