Ugh

“It doesn’t matter who you are and what you do but please remember this one thing: someone loves you more than you love yourself.”

things you deserve this 2018:

Stay close to the things that make you feel alive. Listen to your favorite song on repeat. Watch the sunset. Fall asleep to the sound of rain. Build a pillow fort. Let the sunshine from the window pour over you. Gaze up at the stars and count as many as you can until you lose count. Binge your favorite t.v. show. The smell of old books, daytime moons, that feeling of deja vu, thrift shops, long car rides. It’s the little things in life that make everything worthwhile. And when you feel like you wanna give up, when you feel so alone that the aching in your chest won’t go away, when you convince yourself that you don’t matter, try and remember this: There are so many foods you have not tasted. Books you haven’t read. Songs and albums you have never heard and fell in love with. Words you never even knew existed. Spices you have never smelled. Cities you have never explored and gotten lost in. People you have never met. Maybe you don’t love yourself. Maybe you hate the way you look. Maybe you’ve said something you shouldn’t have. Maybe you miss someone. Maybe you’ve lost someone. Maybe it feels like the world is against you and that you can’t do anything right and that it would be better off if you just disappeared. You are here right now. That’s all that matters. What you have done, what you have said, what you have felt, it doesn’t matter. Your mistakes, your fears, they do not define you. You are alive. You are still standing. Your heart’s still beating. The sun still shines in the morning. The rain still falls from the sky. The flowers still bloom in the spring. The world goes on, despite everything. You have survived through everything you have ever went through, gotten over every hurdle they have placed before you. Don’t give up now.

Stay close to the things that make you feel alive. Listen to your favorite song on repeat. Watch the sunset. Fall asleep to the sound of rain. Build a pillow fort. Let the sunshine from the window pour over you. Gaze up at the stars and count as many as you can until you lose count. Binge your favorite t.v. show. The smell of old books, daytime moons, that feeling of deja vu, thrift shops, long car rides. It’s the little things in life that make everything worthwhile. And when you feel like you wanna give up, when you feel so alone that the aching in your chest won’t go away, when you convince yourself that you don’t matter, try and remember this: There are so many foods you have not tasted. Books you haven’t read. Songs and albums you have never heard and fell in love with. Words you never even knew existed. Spices you have never smelled. Cities you have never explored and gotten lost in. People you have never met. Maybe you don’t love yourself. Maybe you hate the way you look. Maybe you’ve said something you shouldn’t have. Maybe you miss someone. Maybe you’ve lost someone. Maybe it feels like the world is against you and that you can’t do anything right and that it would be better off if you just disappeared. You are here right now. That’s all that matters. What you have done, what you have said, what you have felt, it doesn’t matter. Your mistakes, your fears, they do not define you. You are alive. You are still standing. Your heart’s still beating. The sun still shines in the morning. The rain still falls from the sky. The flowers still bloom in the spring. The world goes on, despite everything. You have survived through everything you have ever went through, gotten over every hurdle they have placed before you. Don’t give up now.

1) Love. Love something. Anything. Love at least once a day, and mean it even if sometimes you don’t truly feel love’s powerful force inside your beating heart. But listen here people, find love in the right places. No useless sex or drugs or alcohol or meaningless relationships. Love is not the pain and the blood and the angst. Sometimes love is in the tender petals of a flower, in the colors of the sky, in the look of a stray animal. Sometimes love is just your will to keep fighting. 2) Write. Write it ALL. Even if it’s a mess of asdfghlj. Write everything that passes through your mind ‘til the point where your fingers can’t type as fast as thoughts and feelings are exploding in your head. Write about love and hatred in the same rythmless poem. Write about past, present and future. SCREAM IN YOUR WRITING or whisper fearfully. It’s okay, it’s all okay. When writing everything is valid and beautiful in a way that perhaps is only harmonious and poetic for you and you alone, but it’s real. And then, read. 3) Read your own writings several days or months or years after. (Don’t edit, though. Do not alter the essence of the moment when you typed down your most inner thoughts.) Read whatever you wrote so many feelings ago and laugh or cry or say “Jesus, this is chaos.” But never, ever, think “Man, I suck. I should stop.” Read other things too, and if you don’t like to, or if you don’t know where to start…read anything that comes across you way until you find those very words that take your breath away. Read and grow your mind. Read, for then you’ll start to dream. 4) Find your home. In religion, in music, in your true family or in your friends. In the silence or in your passion, find your home and your safe haven. Every now and then turn around from the raging crowded world and into your home. Take one of those deep breaths that makes your skin go all goosebumps and then think. Make your thoughts as tranquil and peaceful as your haven, that way you’ll find the angels and brightness inside of you and realize not every though is self-destructive and dark. I promise you, there more you stop and breathe the world through your home, the more you’ll realize: your mind isn’t your enemy; the only way to move forward is learning from a safe distance from the past; as much as you can be your own destruction, you are your salvation too. Do this constantly and one day life will be your home and safe haven. 5) Get out and do something. Life is happening out there so go out and find your adventure. You need the world as much as it needs you, start helping one another. I know- and I’m not gonna lie- it is scary out there with all the hatred and violence, the pollution and unfairness and discrimination. It is so, so overwhelming watching the news and getting out and hearing how everything’s going to hell. BUT it’s not going to change if you stay locked up in your room. I know your cynic mind is telling you “But you won’t change anything.” Well I say: you might and you will. Never forget a wave comes from a ripple, and a ripple creates a wave. Get out and enjoy this marvelous world and make it a better place than what you got. 6) Don’t be ashamed for asking for help. Don’t be scared for saying “I’m not okay”. Do not be proud and do not feel like you’re not worthy, like you’re a waste that must not trouble people with more problems of your own. It’s not selfish to ask for help, to tell someone what you truly feel like, how your life truly is. Just like staying quiet and saying “I’m fine” is NOT selfless and brave. I assure you, we all feel like that every now and then, as I’ve said: we are all a little broken and a little mad. So be a shameless vulnerable, we all should be are. 7) Make friends. Have good friends, or make new good friends, but most importantly be a good friend. Find people like you and stay together. Help each other be a better person, what’s a friend for if not for that? True friends love you in a special way surely fairytales envy. I’m telling you from experience that no possible mental illness or any like will drive true friends away. 8) Smile. That’s the last tip because I don’t want any of you to force a smile ever again. That’s why after everything else I recommend- and hope- that you find more than one reason to smile in a pure way that reflects your mind and soul. Be happy and smile, there’s no other way to live this life.

Scorpio: You don’t know how many times they’ve tried being there for someone only for that person to prove them wrong.

I marvel at the trees, how their leaves change colors and fall off. I realize the biggest lesson I must learn from autumn is how to gracefully let go.

Beautiful in Chicago: Setlist