It’s so crazy how much has burnt you, even if you gave yourself the ability to move on and grow with yourself, you’ll always find those people who don’t discuss or show what hurts them. You don’t have to ask if they’re in pain. Being a past/present victim of feeling broken, alone, vulnerable, and hating yourself in private. When you have to feel any of those things in private, you’re not alone. I know what it is to walk through the day smiling at everyone, talking to everyone, making jokes, wanting to put your character into the world and the people around you. You put on a mask for the world to see so they don’t see what you see or actually feel. It’s an act. It’s your only way of getting through each day, if that’s ever been you, you’re not alone. I see the broken, the hurt, the lonely, the wanting, the vulnerability. I have gone though enough with myself and a witness to those I care most about, that I don’t have to know you to know if you're a victim of pain. To be honest, I would relate it to being able to recognize it within someone as easily as someone who blames their tears on allergies. And that’s the funny but worst part. ANY type of pain or feeling, no matter when it hurt you, how it hurt you, how big of a deal your pain was or is to anyone else; your pain is your pain. And with that being said, you have rights. 1) No one gets to try and undermine what you feel, no matter how big or small, if something hurts you then it hurts you and that’s the bottom line. 2) Some people handle pain differently. Some lose themselves in the crossfire with the thought that they are nothing, maybe they got so used to hearing that, they began to believe it. Maybe they feel like they have nothing, so be the person you would want to approach you, had you felt that way; so you can save someones thoughts from always being a dark cloud and instead turn it into a silver lining. Become reliable, relatable, genuine and open. That is exactly what that person needs, so be it.

I haven't written in a while, I thought I was so content. 
I tell everyone I'm okay, I thought I was.
I give so much advice to people, I thought I was able to follow my own directions.
I write to get eveything out, but my thoughts struggle turning into words.
The truth of it all is, no matter how much I grow as a person, I am still broken. 
I will heal. I will be whole. I am enough. I just don't see it yet.
Every single day I walk into a room of unfamiliar faces and automatically assume I am rejected.
I fear that I am never what someone will want or stick around for.
And for this feeling, I have every reason.
I fell too hard for someone that didn't fall hard enough, or shared their feelings with someone else.
I push myself away from anything good because I fear the feeling of it all happening again. And then I blame myself for being the one that pushed them to someone else. I have so many emotions and feelings that I cant even put into text, no matter how hard I try, and Lord knows I am trying so incredibly hard because I have no where else to let it out.
With that being said, I'll just bullet point the best content that comes to mind and I hope if you're ever in the same position, you tell this to yourself over and over until you realize your worth as well.

• A love that is temporary is never a love worth fighting for, it has to come to an end and you will be the only fighter, standing alone.
• You have to know hurt and pain to be able to appreciate and be grateful for all the good that is given and received.
• People who love you don’t change their mind and come back, they don’t change their mind at all, they love you. You’ll know this because it’s the one person you wake up thinking about, and the one person you go to bed still thinking about. No in between. So when someone says they love you but then they leave, let them. They were never going to stay in the first place, their love was a spell so easily casted on you that is was also cursed enough to be taken away just as easily.
• Just because people go, doesn’t mean it’s you, it’s them. Offer who you are, do what makes you happy, Make someone fall in love with that version of you, the realest most genuine form, and that will be the one that stays. that guy will be the one you can’t keep away from you. 
• You’re worth more than a reoccurring love, you deserve something whole.
• They say if you really love something to let it go and if it comes back it was really yours to begin with. I/you don’t want a bird that comes back. I don’t want a bird who even thinks about being let go of and going on without me. My bird will not have to come back, because my bird never thought twice about being let go of to start with. Nor did it want to.

I'm certainly not sure and I'm sure a majority of you don't either. On the inside of course, I'm not talking about your label of being becoming a lawyer from Harvard with the perfect persona of how everyone wants to live like they see in the movies. I mean who really are you? 
At the end of the day whether you have five dollars to your name or you're living stable and comfortably in every aspect of life, what's on your mind? Are you happy or do you feel lost and the need to search for every thought that could fill the void that would help you find yourself? 
Seeing as how I'm not in the mind of any of you readers, I'll give you a little insight on what goes on in mine. Don't exactly know where to begin but for starters, I wake up every morning not knowing what my life has planned out for me. I overthink what people are thinking of me, even the people I haven't had a decent relationship with since middle school. From that alone, it's incredibly frustrating because I am usually the person in the conversation with someone telling them to stop caring so much about what anyone thinks because you should embrace who you are and the ones you attract from doing so are the ones that you should never lose sight of. I am a firm believer of that, it's just that when I have to be the one to do it, I suffer from too many insecurites to care if people like me for who they think I am or who I really am, as long as they like me. Huge flaw. With that being said, when I say, "for who they think I am", I don't mean that I am a fake person or give off a fake picture of my life nor do I ever conform to the thoughts or beliefs of other people, I remain true to myself but I just don't act like me. But if there's one thing that I ever want to be known for, it's that I am kind. I put the thoughts of others ahead of my own and I want to help others before I even think about helping myself. I am loyal and I am genuine. You will never hear me talk myself up but in the recent months I have come to realize you don't have to hide what you value about yourself. So in this post, let me tell you what I struggled to find out about myself for the longest time with pride instead of shame, as all of you should as well. I have a good heart and I think love in every form is the purest language every individual can speak and all understand. I don't pity peoples problems when they are asking for it, for at times I am very harsh and hard to reach. The reason for that being, I know when someone needs me versus when someone is taking advantage of my kindness and I learned that from being the one crying out for help and from the one seeking attention. I know both sides very well.
When you are four seconds from when the stop light turns green and someone slams on their horn at you, I know it's natural to first feel mad and want to lash out, but don't. Wave your hand and mouth that you're sorry. I don't know if it's because at times, I've tried to end my own life or if it's because I lost the two most important people in my life, that I realized how short and valuable life really is. We have no idea what anyone else is really going through. So when someone doesn't say thank you when you hold the door open for them, or when someone cuts you off, don't take it personally. Remind yourself that they are going through something you know absolutely nothing about. They could have been leaving a loved ones funeral, they could have just got evicted from their home, or just had the absolute morning from hell thinking everything in their life is going wrong. So instead of being anything other than kind and trying to gain some form of insignificant justice, be kind. It's those people who need it the most. The people that are hardest to love are usually the ones who need it most. And for the people that you do know what is going on in their life, don't forget even the strong ones need to be checked up on. Never fail to let people know what they mean to you and how much you appreciate them.
With all being said, I am not fully the person I want to be but the important part is I'm still trying and I will never stop trying to be the best person I want to and can be, I have formed the thought that usually your kindness and the way it reflects on others then shedding light back your way is the way I'll find my answer each morning leading to me to be able to go to bed at the end of the night knowing how I chose happiness.

If I had to accumulate all the things I am hopeful for, for myself and anyone else that often feels they don't recognize what they deserve in life, I wrote this for you:

I hope you find the kind of happiness that exists on your own terms.
I hope you find the calling that ignites a fire in your soul.
I hope you find the passion that moves you.
I hope you find the courage to believe in yourself.
I hope you find the strength so strong nothing could scratch the surface.
I hope you find the love you so effortlessly are willing to give.
I hope you find the courage to express yourself in such a way that you move others.
I hope you find the comfort in yourself to be nothing less than everything you are.
I hope your kindness is recognized and not taken for granted.
I hope the world sees you for who you are, not the mistakes you've made.
I hope you surround yourself with poeple that build you up instead of breaking you down.
I hope you find the type of love that makes you a softer person, a love that supports and believes in you. One that would never give up on you. Someone who chooses you and who you choose first over everyone else. A love that shows you what it is like to love someone more than you love yourself. Someone who builds you a home in their heart.
I hope you are the person that you would want to meet. The kind of person who changes the view on society as a whole.
I hope you can be the person that brightens up a room by just walking in it.
I hope you find acceptance, the kind that doesn't give up on you when you fail.
I hope you get to live in the moments that take your breath away.
Of all the things I hope, I hope most of all that you find yourself, I hope you figure out your heart and I hope you figure out what makes you who you are.
They can steal your ideas and copy your ideas but they can't copy your heart, soul, and mind.
​I hope you're living a life that inspires you.

As many of you may have noticed, I took a break from my writing, I took a break from the people I surround myself with, I took a break from every feeling, thought, and emotion that I had built up, old and new. I'd like to classify this "break"  as  time to help on finding myself, and in doing that, I created the ultimate distance.
Distance to gather myself.
Distance to watch myself break over and over again. 
Distance to heal.
Distance to finally know ME and who I am, what I wanted, what I needed. 
Distance from everyone and everything because with outside opinions and thoughts, it would be inevitable for those to not cloud my own judgment and perception of the whole process I was trying to achieve on my own.

When I used distance for healing, I had to first realize that healing is not something you can do overnight, or even put a time on. Healing is a process. It took me understanding that things don't just end and you are supposed to be able to accept it. It takes understanding why something didn't work out. Healing was the toughest part of this whole thing for me. Let me explain why. There are more things in my life I felt and feel that I was holding onto that I either didn't get closure from, or not knowing what was right from wrong in situations I was stuck in, not knowing if I should wait for people, constantly debating that I invested too much on myself and time into someone or something that I wasn't ready to let go of even when deep down I knew there was nothing left for me to hold onto. So when all these burdens arose and lingered in my mind constantly, I lost sight of myself and instead was full of self-doubt and never thinking I was good enough nor would I even give myself a chance to find out. When I finally decided I could not live like this, I made a change to take the next steps even though I knew I would be taking them alone and confused during the whole journey I was headed out for. That is healing. That is then, where along comes acceptance, coming to terms with the things you can't change, but yet you force yourself to move on. It's the hardest part, although, once you realize you are ready to do it, you also realize the things you're letting go of are what was hurting you so much more from the start but you were too blinded to see it.
So when someone uses distance as a way to help themselves, don't take it personally, understand it is a tool they're using to cope and live the life they deserve to. And while the thought of their absence seems so foreign and unfamiliar to you, that is where they will find themselves again. Let them. 

You knew me better than anyone could. 
I wish I could take back all the things I shared with you.
You didn't deserve to know me like that.
You didn't deserve to know me like I knew me.
I loved you when you ignored, I loved you when you hurt me.
Why did I keep forgiving you? Because your love was the only love I knew and I got comfortable being mistreated by you.
I was too busy trying to build a house in a hurricane. 
The only thing worth saving was the rain.

There are a lot of steps in the process of healing from former lovers or toxic people.
The steps within this post will be, Broken, Bruised, Guarded, and Trying.

BROKEN 
This stage is where you are the most vulnerable and undoubtedly alone. Your thoughts will suffocate you, your mind will push its way into letting you think you did everything wrong when in reality, there was nothing anyone could have been at fault for regardless. You will constantly reminisce on what was and what could be. It isn't worth it. For, that is the reason you allowed yourself to break and be broken.
BRUISED
You are so incredibly fragile but they don't get it. You lost your trust with everyone. You want to give up. How are you ever supposed to find the love you deserve when you are so tired of putting yourself out there for people just to hurt you all over again? It stings. Your heart doesn't deserve to have bruising.
GUARDED 
I see all these people that I am so intrigued in and want to talk to and get to know. You finally find somone you're interested in that you can see something coming from it with. But does he know? There's something holding me back from fully being able to try and love fully. Maybe it's all my experiences from my past, all the insecurities and being afraid again. Afraid of giving myself away to a person before I had any reassurance. If I give you myself, you have to understand that I don't hold back. I will constantly want answers if something scares me because I am scared of being told lies all over again and reassurance lets me know you want to comfort me and still care to. It's hard to let people in when your mind and heart are guarded. 
TRYING
There's still so much hope left inside of me. Despite the wrongs that have been done to me. I know that my life holds so much promise. I know I am often sad or standoffish or even bitter, that is because I get so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I forget to breathe. But yes, I know everything will always be okay, so please, be patient with me. I am trying.

This is not the first but hopefully close to, if not, the last time I write about you specifically. I don't really know where to start, because honestly I don't even know where I want to end, maybe never. I guess over the years I've learned that you don't really have a choice or get to make the decision on when nor how things end. Through the start until the end, you have to acknowledge all the middle parts, the stuff in between. All the ups and all the downs, all the shared feelings and memories you can't rid your mind of no matter how hard you try. I could tell you every detail about things I remember us doing that you probably don't even remember happened. That's who I am, which is the reason we are not. I put my whole life into trying to be in yours. I changed the way I looked at myself, many times full of self-hatred, because after being repetitively told that you're nothing you start to believe it. You made the strongest parts of me into something as fragile as a glass slipper. I didn't know it was possible for a person to feel so weak until you took so much of me away from myself. I have an endless amount of statements to show how toxic you were and are to me. It's the saddest thing because I'm still here which is why this is being written, because I no longer want to be stuck here. All the good parts of me that you never could strip me of want to have faith in you, give you the benefit of the doubt in situations where there is nothing beneficiary. I'm done questioning my own sanity because you lack yours. This is me concluding that it is time to let go of what's breaking me apart and embrace things that will only build me up and put me back together.

As a child, for many years you get asked the infamous question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" 
Everyone has an answer no matter how unrealistic it may be, an astronaut, the president, a doctor, or even a puppy. As you actually grow into the age of becoming what your life is preparing you to be, I realize, not at all am I. 
I am not prepared for life and the real world around me. I notice I have been working so hard on my mental growth that I haven't taken the time or effort to form into what reality expects me to be. In whole, what I'm trying to get out of this post is that while some people were made for the ideal life such as, graduating high school, going off to college (meanwhile still going out with friends while maintaining a perfect grade average), and setting themselves up for life, some of us weren't wired in that fashion. Personally, I struggle with school alone, much less trying to keep up with people and going out. Truthfully, I can barely keep up with the two close friends I have while not even enrolled in college classes only working a part-time job. I can be the first to let you know that growing isn't as easy for some of us as it is others. When I try to take matters into my own hands, I feel like I'm going no where near further. I work on myself, my mental health that is far from content, and my sanity that is far from under control. But people on the outside don't see that, they see a girl who "quit" or took a "break from college" to do nothing. They see a nobody. A nobody who every day is working on being able to see herself as a somebody. 

When you met me you fell for me for God knows what reasons
As time progressed
The smaller of a person I became in your eyes
The worth of me was so much less
All I was, was old damaged goods.

But it's funny
Because you took credit for all of the things that I taught YOU
You think YOU gave me the parts of me that made me what people wanted and who I was
How cruel was I to myself to let myself believe that
I let you feel all of these wonderful things that you wanted recognition for
As if when you left you took everything I possess with you
As if I don't and shouldn't remain who I am without you.

Becasue I still have it with or without you
And now you are the one that will suffer without it.

    For years I was caught in a wave that I couldn't escape. I loved the ocean so I let it take me over full force. I was so accustomed to being trapped in something that I loved that I wasn't able to realize how harmful it really was nor how weak it made me. I didn't come to terms with the fact that, that wave wasn't holding onto me because it needed me but because it was consumed in trying to hurt me. As the front kept dragging me into all I knew, I didn't fight it. I accepted all that I was used to and refused to be saved. 
    One day while being drowned again, I realized it hurt more than it did anything else, not be able to breath because of something that wanted to bring me down. I deserved more. I didn't think anyone could save me. But I was wrong. 

Nothing about the appearance of one's self is what defines who a person is.
You are not your height, you are not your weight, you are not your gender, you are not your race, you are not where you're from, you are not your name, nor are you the things holding you to your past or the ideas that you think of in your head.
So what are you?
Maybe the little particles that make you/us/me who we are, are defined by different things, bigger and better things. Things that actually mean something and have something more than what only scratches the surface of your true being.
You are the books you read.
You are the words that stick out like a sore thumb.
You are the texts that make you genuinely smile.
You are the lyrics to your favorite songs.
You are the things that make you feel gitty for no reason.
You are your favorite scent of your favorite season.
You are the intelligence gained by experience and not by a classroom.
You are the spirit that guides you rather than judges you.
You are the directionless map located in your brain that there is no destination to.
You are far more than the brief, cheap description someone could put on you.
Collectively, there are so many wonderful things that make you who you are, a description is pointless.
​

When you first look at someone is very different than the first time you talk to someone. Both may be unforgettable but they are still two different encounters that often leave different everlasting impressions. The first conversation is also very different from the last, although still unforgettable. A lot of people see things visually and a lot of people see things to feel something. The reason there are so many differences between interactions involving the same people is because of the purpose, I think. Judgement, lust, amusement, attraction, intellect, anything. You could be looking at someone who you think could be your soulmate while they've just passed you by day by day. When you finally talk to that person you learn about them and discover the qualities, good and bad, leaving you with what you will then remember. The conversations change all the time and sometimes the person you met the first time is different than the person you met the last time. The person out there that saw someone to feel something will always have the same heart meanwhile the person who is looking just to see something will constantly change.

It's fascinating. The irony that a writer can feel so lost and lifeless, hanging by whichever limb or branch that is reaching out in front of them temporarily while on the inside, their brain is so incredibly alive. Constant thoughts, so fast that it's hard to grasp one before several more completely wipe out every one that was previous. A writer's brain can never die. Contrary to the wilted heart they have feeling like it's barely pumping, that's actually the key that opens their brain to a world of words unsaid and thoughts trying to be understood. In a writer's world, when one system shuts down, the other never fails to open.

It's early in the middle of the night and I'm the least bit sober but there's nothing filling my mind more than the thoughts I need to put into words. Everything in life, whether it's new or old, is what makes and create your story, your life. Maybe even inevitably, but regardless of how or why doesn't matter. It's about how you take on what happens, how you go about it, and how you incorporate yourself in that situation. You may or may not get to decide how it starts, how it progresses, how it works, how it breaks, and how it ends. More or less, the ending is the trickiest part because sometimes that is the one thing you can't decide or know how to decipher. It's more than likely something you can't control. But what is, is how you handle and control the uncontrollable. You put yourself first and see if the part that you can't change is something you even want to change, will it better you? Does the loss outweigh the gain in the long run? You could ask yourself a million questions trying to figure out if something is worth fighting for when in all honesty, if you have to question anything at all, it probably isn't. And more than that, if the person on the other end of the spectrum that is making you feel this way can't put their own faults and wrongs on the table, they aren't realizing the worth you have or the value of the person you have to offer or have been giving them. So now it's your turn. Be selfish when it comes to deciding the right and wrong types of people that leave and/or enter your life, don't try to fight for the ones that are willingly walking away when you could instead be noticing the ones dying for your attention.

It all begins the same way, maybe not in exact form and order but with the same steps. You had no rhythm in the beginning so you are fine just watching it without being a part of it. Eventually someone will see you in the crowd and they'll give you a hand to try and show you the ropes. It's so easy at first, you're both on the same page and your steps are in sync. You start dancing to a song that doesn't stop and a beat that never ends. You've fallen in love with the movements you always stood alongside watching, wondering why you never gave it a shot sooner. As the dance gets more enticing, the two of you are just begging for what other steps you can take without the dance ending. You add twirls, spins, dips, and flips. After a while, you've learned so much and added so much, you can never quite keep your steps in the order that feels right and goes together smoothly like it did in the beginning. You try and try but now you've lost count of the amount of times you've stepped on each others toes and tried to spin in opposite directions. The dancer that took your hand is getting tired of trying to teach something that can no longer be taught and never goes right. Without warning, you start dancing to the song and then the song that never stopped comes to an end and the dancer walks away gesturing that you were a fun lesson and you no longer are needed, but you're dying for the dance and the steps you could never forget and the things added in between, you would never give it up. When you're no longer needed as a lesson, is when you learned yours. Then, you no longer question why you didn't begin sooner but why you ever took a hand that was guiding you in an unknown direction. You go over the steps in your head all the time but you never get to work them out, you eventually think your rhythm is fine on its own and you go back to watch the others dance. This time you see your dancer starting a dance with another hand. The steps in your head are incomplete and tangled and you trip and fall while the dance is now starting again without you.  

I told you I wasn't ready to let go. Please don't make me. When you leave, you become another addition to my collection of temporary "permanent" people. I hate that, I hate that the title is even classifiable as a collection. Please just stay. I am holding onto everything I have to keep you with me. I told you I needed you, I told you to stay. Don't tell me otherwise.

They always say that the person you will run back to no matter what is the person you love.
They say that when that person is all your thoughts revolve around, that is the person you love.
They say that fate will lead you to that person if it's meant to be in the future.
They say a lot of things, but what they don't say is that love is often a one way ticket that you find yourself going on alone. They fail to mention that sometimes love runs dry on one side while the other side is running in every direction they can to be wanted again. 

When asked if there's anything particular that completely and utterly brings ease to your heart, soul, and mind, do you have something you could answer with? Every person needs something that brings oneself to a place of ease. I titled this post "Petrichor," (definition: a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm/dry weather) because in a sense, that is one of the things that comes to me when I think of solace. But to go beyond the surface of that small statement, the word itself is affiliated with the smell after a rain, rain to many people correlates with or brings sadness. I correlated it to solace, meaning comfort or consolation during a time of distress or sadness. The two ideas I'm bringing together would classify as a contradiction to happiness which I'm trying to find. With that being the root of what I'm trying to make said, sometimes it's the things that bring a dismal state of mind that can also bring contentment to one. But above all, to let you know you're still feeling something. You're still human, you're still alive, and you still have so much left to feel. 

I like you
You saved me from my demons
You gave me hope
You also gave me doubt
You are perfect
But as time goes on
I realize I'm not perfect for you

I like you
I want you
The longer I wait
The longer I keep trying
I realize the hope you gave me 
Could turn into all of the doubts I tried avoiding
I don't want to be hurt by you
Because then you're just another page to my novel of false hopes

But then I'm also just another girl who wasn't worth holding onto
I do see it coming
I just don't want it to
Because between all the doubts and false hopes 
I wanted to picture you being the one that never stopped saving me

But thank you for showing me that I am able to be saved