Yo

Do your best, and be a little better than you are.

Sometimes you feel so deeply that you begin to wonder if anyone will understand the depths of your heart, the range of emotions that go on behind the scenes of your face. The chaos of ideas and struggles, the ever moving cycle of “what if’s” and “why’s” that seem to entangle you in a net that never seems to go away. So you feel all the pain of those around you, you remember the ache that has lived inside you for as long as you can remember, and you wait for someone to come along and look at you, saying “You are familiar, and I want to get to know you again.” This is what we all want, to be seen and known, to be loved deeply as we feel deeply. To breathe and exhale without the fear that someone will leave when we have turned our back. We want a love that is as steady as our own breathing, and as life giving as the air we take in. Hold on, dear heart, hold on for the one who will see you, and know you. Who will love you with a love that is familiar; because our hearts have known too many strangers who have tried to call our hearts a pitstop, when it is a home, waiting for someone to find their way to a place that is safe.

You’ll be fine. You’re 25. Feeling [unsure] and lost is part of your path. Don’t avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it. Take a breath. You’ll be okay. Even if you don’t feel okay all the time.

Sometimes we get sad about things and we don’t like to tell other people that we are sad about them. We like to keep it a secret. Or sometimes, we are sad but we really don’t know why we are sad, so we say we aren’t sad but we really are.

Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else. But just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes.

It could all be gone tomorrow. Always remember that.

But sometimes you just have to accept that some things simply cannot remain the same.