everything I want to say but never will

“I can say with great certainty and absolute honesty that I did not know what love was until I knew what love was not.”

“If outside validation is your only source of nourishment, you will hunger for the rest of your life.”

“Be nice to yourself. It is hard to be happy when someone is being mean to you all the time.”

“You don’t need to be better than any one else you just need to be better than you used to be.”

To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they're too exhausted to be any longer. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out, to become speedily found when they are lost. But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be.

“As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are - what others say is irrelevant.”