I love hard. If you are good to me you will get my best. If you’re sad, I will do everything within my power to lift your spirits. I love to love others. But what I love more than anything, and I think what I’m best at, is showing people how to love themselves.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. You can hold someones hand through all their ups and downs, but if you let them depend on you, if you allow yourself to do everything for someone.. you aren’t really helping them. You are only going to inevitably hurt them really badly in the long run. The most important part of loving someone I have learned, is showing them how to do it on their own. Showing them how NOT to need you. Showing them that they could walk away from you at any moment and be perfectly okay. Love isn’t about needing someone else. It isn’t about making yourself so large in their life that they feel like they couldn’t live without you. It’s about the opposite. It’s about teaching them how to love themselves and take care of themselves the way that you would want to be taken care of. It’s about being there, but knowing and making it known that they are the main character in their life, and whatever is best for them is whats best. Real love, real care, it’s rare. And it’s what I have to offer. I love loving you, but that’s not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is for me to show you that you are amazing and you don’t need me, all the while hoping you will still want me.

I think that you believe you loved me. I didn’t for a while, I thought that you really just liked the control and you liked the toll I gave you the power to take on me. But hindsight is always clearer, and I do think that you believe you loved me. I think you cared. I think that I consumed you in a very different, yet somehow similar way that I let you consume me. I think when you started to lose your grip you lashed out because you were scared, not because you’re a monster. I tried to tell myself you’re a monster. In some ways maybe you are. But I know that your heart is good because I’ve seen it, and I think that you believed you loved me.

But love is not about control, or ownership, and when someone loves you you don’t spend your nights gasping for air or crying into your pillow. When someone loves you, you don’t need to take a bath to calm your nerves every night because you can’t stop shaking. When someone loves you you don’t toss and turn and wake and yearn to be good enough for them, God how I wanted to be good enough for you. God, how I never was. When someone loves you it’s simple. When someone loves you they can forgive you, because you love them too and they can see how hard you’re trying. When someone loves you, you don’t have to try. When someone loves you you are picnicking in rose gardens instead of driving in and out of hurricanes. When someone loves you, they love you, and it’s as plain and as spectacular as that.

So yes, I think you believed you loved me, but you didn’t. And I am trying to love myself now in all the ways that you could not.

the thing about being such a caring person is that people will like that you care more than they actually like you

I used to have a friend named Brooke.

She was loud and she was funny, and if you messed with her she wouldn’t let it go without saying. Brooke was the kind of girl who would tell you when she was mad, and she wouldn’t say it in a whisper. If you messed with her friends she would scream it even louder. I remember once in high school a girl kissed my now-ex boyfriend and, while I was too meek to make a scene about it, Brooke openly stood up for me in public and made sure everyone knew what the two of them had done. Brooke and I fell out of touch, she wasn’t a perfect friend and neither was I (which I thought was necessary for a friendship at the time), but I find myself thinking about her still now and missing her loud and fierce loyalty. Looking back I can see that she wasn’t just loyal to me, she was loyal to the best version of me. I couldn’t see it at the time, but I think she wanted me to be happy. We were two peas in a pod, two silly little girls, she, much braver than I, but she encouraged me to let loose and be a version of myself that is only a memory now. I find myself missing that girl.

I think I was happy with Brooke. I think her brave spirit made me more brave, and her fearlessness made me less afraid. Have you ever had a friend like this? Whose mere spirit just brings you comfort? Who is so loudly themselves, that you feel like you can be loudly yourself, too?

Maybe I needed to lose Brooke to realize how much I miss her, and maybe I needed to miss her to realize this: I need to be that friend for myself. I need to show myself the same kind of loyalty that she showed me, and push for my best version when it’s not shining through. I need to protect myself from those who aren’t for me, as I think Brooke tried to do. I need to be fearlessly myself on my own. I needed to gain and lose a friendship like this to understand.

I don’t know why or how Brooke would ever see this, but Brooke if you’re reading this, I’m sorry, and thank you. I hope you are still this person for yourself and those around you, and I am so thankful for the lesson you’ve taught me just through being you. Thank you.

If love knew how I felt

It would quit strolling around parks

And picnicking in rose gardens

And begins dancing through lightning storms

And driving through hurricanes

If love knew how I felt

It would get high to escape the pressure of reciprocating

The same way he always did

If love knew how I felt

It would weep for the girls who hate themselves

Simply because they aren’t her

If love knew how I feel

It would feel guilty for giving me so much

When others have so little

— the first time I broke

I hope you dance all night.

I hope you cherish every moment of it

When he pulls you a little closer

When you accidentally step on his toes and he laughs, that short, adorable laugh

When the beat slows and the night grows older and you find yourself nestled under his chin

And you feel at home there

I hope you feel safe

Because right now, you are

Right now

He would never dream of hurting you

I hope he brushes the curls back from your eyes

And I hope that kiss is the most magical thing you’ve ever felt

Until he does it again

I hope he twirls you around

I hope he never stops

But that’s the thing about dancing

The song always ends

And I hope nothing more than this

When the music stops playing

You’ll remember the dance for what it was

And walk away

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton