Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it. // “Like wildflowers; you must allow yourself to grow in places people never thought you would”

no such thing as being sad over people in a world full of opportunities and savages...now let that shit go and evolve.

I am here. Even during the placement of a drought—no words, no touch—I am still here. I keep my silence, you keep your silence… I wish I had more to write, more to show you, ghost kisses for your mind—

“Porn will never love you back. It will leave you just as it found you—alone. Porn won’t fight for you, it won’t look after you, and it won’t make you appreciate the little things in life. Love offers companionship, friendship, and a close bond that no feeling on this earth can rival. Humans are wired to feel love, and to bond to another three-dimensional person that can live life with them. Love can push you to to be a better person and give unselfishly, lifting your partner’s wants and needs above your own. Porn capitalizes on the idea that your pleasure and your enjoyment are the most important things regardless of anyone else’s pain, suffering, or abuse. The actors you see in porn will never hold your hand or grow old with you, but love can last through trials and seasons of life. Fighting for love means fighting for the things in life that are healthy, and worthwhile, and fighting against the toxicity that is porn.”

Just before you begin to read old messages, you will regret it and know it’s a bad thing to do. It will burn your heart, but you think you’ll be fine and can handle it. When you finally have courage to do it, it makes you re-live that exact moment of each text, having each thought, emotion and feeling, when the conversation was taking place. It’s a burst of fresh air; happiness and hope, you begin to forget it’s the past and think what you’re reading is the current.
Then it hits you.
Those messages are just bittersweet memories. They’re moments in your life, when you were at your happiest. You haven’t felt that happy since and you want to feel it again. You want that person to be exactly how they were. You want everything between you and them to be how it was. But you realise it can never be the same.
You keep those messages just to feel like you’re loved and wanted, from that person, one last time; even if it’s for a split second.

They will forever be memories.

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.

Free yourself from the illusion of good and bad days. Labeling time makes us nostalgic of the past and demanding of the future. There is only here and now. Let it be.

You think you know someone, but that person always changes, and you keep changing, too. I understood it suddenly, how that’s what being alive means. Our own invisible plates shifting inside of our bodies, beginning to align into the people we are going to become.

i may act like i’m sassy but if you’re mean to me there is a 900% chance i’ll cry

When I like people immensely I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.

I have late night conversations with the moon, he tells me about the sun and I tell him about you.

I think part of the reason why we hold so tight is because we fear something so great won’t happen twice

 

In a world full of temporary things, you are a perpetual feeling.

If you are a sea, drown me
If you are a flame, pour gasoline on me
If you are a rope, let me hang from you
If you are you, break my heart

“To let go or try harder”

i miss having someone to talk to until one of us falls asleep or to say our goodnights that last about 30 minutes because we never stopped talking

i miss looking forward for waking up just to talk to you

i miss waiting for you to wake up

i miss saying ‘good morning my beautiful angel, how was your sleep? i love you’

i miss just having the feeling of knowing that i was loved by another person and i was cared about and they meant it.
it was something that i had never felt before.

We love the things we love for what they are.

That’s the problem when it comes to loving someone, you’d let them stab you if that’s what the wanted. The worst part is, you would be the one to hand them the knife.

I could’ve been, so many things… But it would never be enough for you, I was the one, You counted on… But I was never the one for you. Now I know. I lost you a long time ago…

I fell in love with you, long before I knew.

You don’t know distance until you’ve shared your bed with somebody who’s falling out of love with you.

See, you can’t do that, to come in somebody’s life, make them care about you and then just check out.

Begging for your love, begging for our eyes to meet.

Of course, you never really forget anyone, but you certainly release them. You stop allowing their history to have any meaning for you today. You let them change their haircut, let them move, let them fall in love again. And when you see this person you have let go, you realize that there is no reason to be sad. The person you knew exists somewhere, but you are separated by too much time to reach them again.

Hey, there are a ton of alternate universes where you and I never met each other, and I’m really glad I got to love you in this one.

When you find someone who can make you laugh. Smile. Grow. lust. Want. Crave. Feel. Make you mad but happy. Keep that. That’s euphoria.

If someone treats you like you are unimportant, it is a reflection of them and what they value out of relationships. It is not a reflection of you or your worth as person. You don’t have to prove your importance to other people.

I wanted to be as close as possible
without touching you
without breaking anything

I wish I had been given more time, more space to decide what I wanted—what I’ve been wanting—for myself. A year, perhaps, if no judgment could surround a pause in my formal schooling (not that it should’ve mattered in the first place, because in the end my education will only, or mainly, affect me). I hope I am not lost this time, that I do not lose again this time, and that if I graduate a bit later it is not too heavy; if I graduate a bit later, it only matters that I do excel at my own pace. I am young, and yet so obsessed with achieving something, proving something to myself—that I can still be good, as brilliant as I can will myself to be. That it is not too late for me to lead an intellectual life. I need to believe this to keep going.

I love it when people speak to me in their soft, quiet voices—like whispering, almost. I love it, I love it.

any relationship that could be “ruined” by having a conversation about feelings, standards, or expectations wasn’t really firm enough anyway, so there isn’t much to ruin

Stay loyal to your girl. These hoes lonely and miserable. They don’t love themselves and will try to tear down ya happiness to make themselves feel better. Stay. Loyal. To. Your. Girl.







We have to create;
it is the only thing louder than destruction.

She does not remind me of anything; / everything reminds me of her.





June is wide-eyed and blushing, and I am squeezing raw lemons over my own heart. 

say everything as honestly as you can. strengthen your voice by listening to it more often. embrace being vulnerable and truthful, even if it is scary. or feels impossible.

Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.

 

“I’ve learned that fear is simply an illusion based on past experiences that we project into the present and onto the future.”

“Let’s be brave in our love so that we can show others why love matters. Because important things take courage to do.”

“1. push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise.

2. push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. wake up in the morning feeling re-energized and comfortable. 

3. get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else. 

4. stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything.

5. buy a 1L water bottle. start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice.

6. buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small.

7. strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full.

8. organise your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle.

9. have a luxurious shower with your favourite music playing. wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck.

10. push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realise you can learn from your dog.

11. message old friends with personal jokes. reminisce. suggest a catch up soon, even if you don’t follow through. push yourself to follow through.

13. think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything. 

14. become the person you would ideally fall in love with. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave a second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends.

15. lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.”

“Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to be what we’re not, feeling lousy about ourselves when we fail, and sometimes when we succeed. We hide our differences when, by accepting and celebrating them, we could collaborate to make every effort more exciting, productive enjoyable, and powerful. Personally, I think we should start right now.”

“Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you.”

“Forgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering–remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you don’t want to repeat what happened.”

“I once read that forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a different past…but forgiving is not the same as obliterating memory.”

“We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.”

You’re wasting a lot of time and energy, a lot of opportunities to do good, by focusing on condemning some people. It is not courageous to hate people. It is courageous to love them. Love is always the answer. 

“Love between friends isn’t all games and giggles. It means I want to see the best in you, and I hope you have the outspoken audacity to see the best in me. Real friends speak with tears in their eyes, voice shaking, heart breaking, a quiet courage to say ‘You’re better than this.’”

VOCABULARY FOR CONNECTION & INTIMACY

This is a mix of what I’ve been learning as a student therapist for Marriage & Family Therapy paired with terminology from an IFS therapist, Conor McMillen, on increasing intimacy through being intentional with language. I find it all incredibly fascinating, helpful, & relevant for communicating intentionally and vulnerably in my marriage. 

The Self: The active, compassionate inner leader containing the perspective, confidence, and vision necessary to lead an individual’s internal and external lives harmoniously and sensitively. When you feel an overwhelming emotion that prevents you from connecting fully, check in with the Self—that centered version of yourself—and see what is making it feel threatened that’s keeping you from feeling the freedom to be yourself or be fully present. When the Self is leading, you have the capacity to connect.

It’s important to check in with Self often—especially when something feels “off” whether it be internally with your thoughts and emotions, or externally with your environment and interactions. Consider: Are the things I’m doing allowing me to stay true to myself? Are we actively supporting each other? Do we feel supported? If the answer is no, then explore why and try to tend to that need so the Self might take leadership again. If you feel the need to hide, lie, or avoid in order to protect yourself from discomfort, the Self is not leading, and there is an emotional need that hasn’t been met.

Serves Me: The hope is that if someone were to ask why you do a certain thing, you could answer, “because it serves me.” If something is serving you, it is adding value to your life and increasing your ability for authentic connection. To be deliberate in choosing what you do with your time and energy and how you do it, requires that you intentionally care for the Self. This is crucial and necessary in order for us to have the energy to love and connect with others. This form of self care values genuine desire and eagerness rather than obligation. If something does not serve us, we want to work towards changing that if possible, and if it isn’t, we want to get rid of it. 

Support: Encouraging and celebrating the other’s journey as it unfolds in a way that helps them be their authentic Self. Supporting each other from a purely compassionate place—reaching out to each other to connect compassionately with each others’ experience, delighting in their success, and sharing in the joy of their growth and development as a beautiful human.

Flow: a state of ultimate presence—connectedness with Self, connectedness with the world around you. Marked by ease and comfort. Being in the flow means having less rigid expectations and accepting life as it unfolds before you. Choosing to live in the flow allows you to choose gratitude, patience, and compassion in every moment. It is not the eradication of dreams, hopes, and goals, but a choice to not lose joy when life doesn’t manifests according to what was planned. This is a fuller version of being “laid-back” because it has the capacity to press into the present moment with peace and readiness.

Holding space: To ask your partner to hold space for you when you need to share something about your experience. To hold space is to receive information or serve as a witness without being reactive or corrective. This provides connection if the person holding space intends to cultivate safety for the other person to be seen and feel known and loved. As if you were holding an open container for your partner to fill in order to lighten their load, to hold space is to listen, to see, and to receive content–it is not a time to advise, critique, or react. When your partner asks you to hold space for them, they are asking to be heard.

Authenticity: Considering what feels most right for you in order to have integrity with yourself and others. It is a state of freedom that you allow for yourself so you don’t compromise the parts of yourself that you value. Essentially, it is the opposite of obligation and pretense. Authenticity is what makes compassion possible.

Compassion: The willingness to understand and connect. It is a space filled with love that prioritizes connection over being right or policing the others’ opinions or decisions. It is marked by love, and a deep calmness that seeks to see rather than to judge. When compassion is present, connection is possible.

Freedom: The liberty of knowing you always have a choice and the right to choose. It is knowing that you don’t ever have to feel trapped or stuck. Validate your needs, acknowledge your wants, consider how to best care for self, and be free to do that for your wellbeing. If you feel the need to escape, you might not be feeling free. Freedom allows you to be fully present. If the present moment feels overwhelming, consider what you use to escape, why you escape, and what it would look like to press into the discomfort and work through it so you can feel free without the need to buffer unpleasant feelings that might pull you out of the moment. 

Safety: This requires an awareness of the emotions that are making you feel unsafe so you’re able to tend to them—emotions like fear, jealousy, shame, embarrassment, etc. Cultivating safety for one another also requires a mindfulness of when the other takes a risk in being vulnerable and meeting that moment of courage with compassion and care. We want to be mindful that if we get the urge to react in any way contrary to compassion, it is because we too feel unsafe in some way and need to check in with Self, because it isn’t leading.

Play: a mental space, or a mindset that treasures excitement, fun, silliness, and joy, and purposefully seeks these things out, and cultivates them in daily life.

Talk: this requires us to always speak for self, to never accuse, to choose wording that is gentle rather than harsh, accurate rather than exaggerated, curious rather than assumptive, and honest rather than manipulative.

Language is powerful, and it is essential to cultivating healthy relationships. Developing a vocabulary that uses language intentionally and increases our self-awareness broadens our opportunities for connection and genuine intimacy.

“Bad artists ignore the darkness of human existence. Good artists often get stuck there. Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.”

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”

“I think that by beauty, you don’t just mean something that’s pretty. You mean something that makes us human.”

“How do you know if something is real? That’s easy. Does it change you? Does it form you? Does it give you wings? Does it give you roots? Does it make you look back at a month ago and say, “I am a whole different person right now”? If yes, then it’s real. The evidence of truth and reality, lies in how much something can touch you, can change you, even if it’s from very far away. Distance is only the evidence of what can be surpassed.”

“Truth is beautiful, no matter what the truth is. Even if it’s scary or bad. It is beauty simply because it’s true. And truth is bright. Truth makes you more you.”

“My life–my personality, my habits, even my speech–is a combination of the books I choose to read, the people I choose to listen to, and the thoughts I choose to tolerate in my mind.”

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”

“I find no importance in showing others that I am happy; it’s not important to me that they know or think that I am happy but what is important to me is that I am happy. I am interested in being happy, not in making others think or know that I am.”

“Highly sensitive people are too often perceived as weaklings or damaged goods. To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, it is the trademark of the truly alive and compassionate. It is not the empath who is broken, it is society that has become dysfunctional and emotionally disabled. There is no shame in expressing your authentic feelings. Those who are at times described as being a ‘hot mess’ or having ‘too many issues’ are the very fabric of what keeps the dream alive for a more caring, humane world. Never be ashamed to let your tears shine a light in this world.”

“They say the first step is the hardest. But it’s really the third—when you’re too far in to turn back and not far enough to completely commit.”

Bevevo nei suoi occhi vividi di tempesta la bellezza che incanta ed il piacere che uccide. 

-Charles Baudelaire

You’re not fake simply because you act differently depending on the person you’re with. Different personalities bring out different aspects of your personality. You’re complex and multidimensional; it’s beautiful.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

“I waited a long time out in the world before I gave myself permission to fail. Please don’t even bother asking. Don’t bother telling the world you are ready. Show it, do it, treat everyone kindly, and light up the night.”

“Insecurity was never humility; just as arrogance was never success.”

“I act and react, and suddenly I wonder, ‘Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years ago? What would she think of me now?’”

“I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don’t want to spend my life with someone who is always critical. So I am going to stop being my own critic. It’s high time that I accept all the great things about me.”

“Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.”

“The real warriors in this world are the ones that see the details of another’s soul. They see the transparency behind walls people put up. They stand on the battlefield of life and expose their heart’s transparency, so other’s can finish the day with hope. They are the sensitive souls that understand that before they could be a light they first had to feel the burn.”

“If you get tired,
learn to rest,
not to quit.”

here’s a thought

let’s tell young boys that they are brimming with kindness and imagination and nobility. point out their gentleness, their fierce joy and limitless capacity to love everyone and everything. tell them they are princes in a kingdom of wonders and beauty and thoughtfulness and the warmth of their own hearts. take them to museums and symphonies and forests to make tree forts in. raise them to empathize, innovate and do good things. with confidence and humility.

stop for just one second.

think about all the people you’ve secretly had a crush on. all the people you’ve found attractive, but never said anything to. every stranger you’ve temporarily fallen in love with on public transportation. all the people you’ve dreamt of and thought of in the early mornings.

and now take a moment to realize that they’re lizards. all of them. they were all reptilians in disguise

During insect metamorphosis the animal goes through a great loss of neurons, and a brand subsequent neurogenesis, connected to the new body. I wonder if this means a butterfly has no memory of having been a caterpillar. I wonder if the caterpillar thinks the flush of ecdysone is death, or a mistake. Eternity without memory is useless.

no such thing as a life that’s better than yours

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