Feel These Words

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

“Do yourself a favor and learn how to walk away. When a connection starts to fade, learn how to let it go. When a person starts to mistreat you, learn how to move on … to something and someone better. Don’t waste your energy trying to force something that isn’t meant to be.”

“Your absolute best won’t be good enough for the wrong person. At your worst, you’ll still be worth it to the right person. Remember that.”

“The best gift you are ever going to give someone - the permission to feel safe in their own skin. To feel worthy. To feel like they are enough.”

“I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved.”

“If you have to speculate if someone loves you and wants to be with you, chances are they don’t. It’s not that complicated. Love, in most cases, betrays the one feeling it. Don’t waste moments waiting and wondering. Don’t throw away your time dreaming of someone that doesn’t want you. No one is that amazing, certainly not the one who would pass you up.”

“Love comes to those who still love after disappointment, who still believe after betrayal, and who still love after they’ve been hurt.”

“If you leave her, make sure she’s not the love of your life. Otherwise you will meet her one day, on an autumn street, yellow leaves blowing about her, her arms full of her child and a happy marriage. And she will as you expectantly, her eyes gleaming, hoping you found happiness too, “What did you trade me for?” And you will not be able to answer. Because all you traded true love in for is empty hands and a half full life.”

“Some say I’m too sensitive but the truth is I just feel too much. Every word, every action and every energy goes straight to my heart.”

No one warns little girls that being a woman is often going to be the art of holding yourself together because the wolf world around you was built to shatter you, to rip your courage out of your own arms so it can tear you apart.

You’ll never be her. And you know something? You shouldn’t try to be. When the moon is breaking through your windowpane and breaking through your ribs and breaking into your brain as you picture him kissing her - when the night tastes sour and so do your tears do not wish your body could curl like a comma and become small like her, do not wish your voice could swell to fill a room like hers does, do not wish for her talents and her charisma, do not wish that you could grow out your hair or take scissors to your rolls or open yourself up and become perfect like her. He doesn’t love you, but that’s not your fault. Some people don’t fit together. Do not cut yourself to shreds for his benefit. If she is his real puzzle piece, that means your real one is out there too, waiting. And he or she or they will love you with enough force that you will feel the ground shake - and somewhere there will be a person just as jealous of you as you are in this moment. My love, my heart: somewhere, there is a person wishing to be all that you are. They are sitting in a dark room and the light of their soul is quietly extinguishing itself in jealousy. And I know in this moment this doesn’t matter to you, but know that the trees and the birds and the newborn puppies all still think you’re perfect, know that nature never judged someone for their grades or whether or not a boy kissed them and meant it. And I know - I know - that when people leave, it feels as if the world turned cold, but my darling, you are not broken. You will remember how to love the night with her danger and fireflies and you will remember how to love your hair with the slight curl that will never straighten and you will remember that this body was a whole ocean undiscovered, that even you are still noticing new freckles and how your veins connect like tree branches. When you feel whole again, it will not be because you have replaced him with the bitter smoke of another person. It will be at six in the morning when you are standing in the shower and are finally able to take a deep breath and feel a little okay again. It will be when you are sitting in bed with the moon peeking shy through your window, blushing with her white cheeks, and you will tilt your face up to her and say, “I’m sorry, my love, I had forgotten all that you gave me” and even though there will be no great shift or revelation, you will just be alright again. My love: breathe. Cry until you are hollow and then fill your body with anything but the smell of his sheets.

As children we think of our parents as invincible, as a constant. There isn’t a moment that we truly think of our lives without them, holding our hand, a few steps behind, ready to guide us in the right direction. It doesn’t matter how old we get, how much older they get. You are never ready for your parents to be your ghosts. You’re never ready for the phone call, the diagnosis, the permanence. Suddenly you are six again, lost in a department store, searching every aisle and calling out their name. Strangers offer to help, but you don’t know these voices or these faces. You just want the warm reassurance of your parent’s hand cupping your tiny fist assuring you that everything is okay, that they would never just leave you. But you don’t get that this time, there are no guarantees, life is unpredictable and cruel and you’re alone again. Lost in that big department store and this time there is no reassurance, this time you don’t get the firm grip of your parents hand, this time there is only you in a sea of aisles and the harsh fluorescent lights glaring off the floor.

You didn’t love her. You just didn’t want to be alone. Or maybe she was good for your ego. Or maybe she made you feel better about your miserable life. But you didn’t love her. Because you don’t destroy people you love.