8 things to give up

1. Self rejection

2. Negative self-talk

3. Criticising others

4. Being a people pleaser

5. Fear of failure

6. Procrastination

7. Holding onto grudges

8. Expecting perfection

This one time I painted a living room with a girl.

This was a handful of years back. It was about eight months before the huge, flame-out of a breakup. That day, though? That day we painted the living room? It was pretty uneventful. We painted my parents living room for $50 between us and a pizza. That was it. I think we watched Anchorman or something after that.

"But it still holds as on of the most indelible memories I have. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not still in love, it happened, it was good, it ended, and we’ve both moved on. But I’ll never forget that day. Because it’s never, in the long run, about the grand gestures. You can fly across the world and show up on her doorstep with a rose in your teeth and a ring in a little velvet box but I can guarantee you that - more often than not - she’s going to remember the time you built the birdhouse in the back yard, or what have you, a whole lot more.

Life wasn’t meant to be taken in large movements. The next day will inevitably arrive, you’ll sleep, and the moment will have passed. But when you have a hundred thousand small moments, you can step back and appreciate the picture a lot more than metaphorically blowing your load on some grand moment that, in all honesty, look, you’re not Bruce Fucking Springsteen, you’re not going to be able to blow everyone’s mind every single night. You’re not Romeo and/or Juliet. There’s no reason to drink the poison together in some flame-out gesture. So that leaves us with the small stuff. It’s all about the detail.

That’s what love is. Attention to detail.

And the moment will end. And then things will get boring. And it might get a little quiet. And it might all end horribly. And you might hate eachother at the end. And you might walk away from eachother one day and never speak again. But that’s just how it goes.

But she’ll remember the time you held the door open for her on your first date.
She’ll remember the time you laughed at her impression of the landlady.
She’ll remember the time you stayed up all night that first time. 
She’ll remember the small things a lot longer than the big ones.

But everything ends. And I’ll tell you why you have to make the small things, the small moments count so much more:

One day, probably a while longer from now, when old age takes ahold of someone, she might just only remember your smile. Everything you ever did together, every second, every moment, every beat, every morning spent in bed, every evening spent together on the sofa, all of that - gone. Everything you ever did will be reduced to the head of a pin. She won’t remember your name. She’ll just remember your smile, and she’ll smile. She won’t know why. It’s a base, gut reaction. But she’ll smile, uncontrollably, and it will come from somewhere so deep as to know that you touched her on a primal, honest, and true level that no scientist, scholar, or savant could ever begin to explain. There is no more. There is nothing else. There is just this: She’ll remember your smile, and she’ll smile."

If you’re ever lucky enough to find a girl who is a hopeless romantic with a dirty mind, you should hold onto that. Because she’ll be yours at two in the morning and at two in the afternoon the following day. She’ll kiss you where it hurts and until it hurts. And that’s important. Someone who not only knows how to turn you on but also knows how to treat you right is someone worth a little something… and a little more than usual.

me

im always either sleep deprived, sex deprived, food deprived or all of the above

YOU DON’T OWE YOUR PARENTS ANYTHING IT WAS THEIR CHOICE TO HAVE, KEEP AND RAISE YOU BUT IT WASN’T YOUR CHOICE TO BE THEIR CHILD ANY EXPECTATIONS OR IDEALS THEY TRY AND ENFORCE ON YOU ARE BULLSHIT IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THEM THEY SHOULD ACCEPT THEIR CHILD AS THEY ARE NOT JUDGE THEM ON A MINOR DETAIL THAT DOESN’T AFFECT THEIR LIFE DO NOT FEEL BAD IF YOU AREN’T THE PERFECT CHILD YOUR PARENTS THINK YOU SHOULD BE

YES

"My heart didn’t break into a thousand pieces after he left. Instead, I realized all the things he didn’t do. He didn’t want to hear my stories. He didn’t ask me questions. He didn’t smile when I was talking to him. He didn’t hug me out of the blue to make me feel good. His hugs were always a preamble to something else, and after he was gone, I wondered if he ever knew me at all."

—	Diane Les Becquets

the person who loves you now once loved someone else, and you have to be okay with that

he person who loves you now, at this very moment in time, at this particular juncture in space, once loved someone else before you, and you have to be okay with that. You have to be okay with all the previous mouths they’ve kissed or put their tongues into, all the names they’ve pronounced dozens of times until they got them just right. You have to be okay with those things, and with the beds they’ve slept in that were not their own, with the hands they held and the bodies they explored, even the awkward first dates they went on filled with so much tension it couldn’t have been sliced even with a butcher knife.

Because the thing is, the person who loves you now was a different person entirely before they were with you. Every passageway hidden inside their body was lit differently; every corridor inside their brain was traveled by new thoughts. Their synapses were firing with another kind of love, a love unique to this person and their significant other. If all the different kinds of love in the world were bottled up in tiny vials like perfume or shots of alcohol, there would be millions. Billions, even. Trillions. Because what’s love for one person, is something else entirely to another. So the person who loves you now- they once held a bottle of another color, size, shape, you name it, in their hands, right over their heart.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to try to find this vial, wherever it’s residing currently, and smash it open till all the love pours out in a thick stream, just so you can fill yours with the same kind of love. It doesn’t mean that. In fact, it’s better if you don’t, because what the person who loves you now had with their previous lover can never be replicated. It would be wrong to steal a feeling like that and try to make it your own.

The body is basically a mosaic. Every inch of it- veins, lungs, liver, fingernails- is filled with different memories and experiences. It’s a collage of so many things. If you aren’t okay with the person who loves you now, loving someone else before you, then essentially you’re not okay with all the shards nestled beneath their skin that are made up of this previous lover. Essentially, you’re not okay with some of their pieces, and without those pieces, they wouldn’t be whole. You can’t be with a broken shell of a person, or a half skeleton, or a mosaic missing its most basic parts.

You have to learn to say yes to the entire person, not just the parts of them you wish were yours. The person you love now isn’t a computer chip whose electrical wiring and circuits can be deleted or removed at will. So treat them like every single shard and scar and word is necessary, because, well, it is.

And it can be so hard to lie awake at night while your partner is asleep, tracing the curves of their back and counting the names of their exes instead of sheep. If you’re looking for a cure for insomnia, that’s certainly not going to help. It’s difficult, yes, as difficult as crawling through a hurricane or pulling yourself from the wreckage of a splintered ship lost in the middle of the water, but you have to stop thinking about everyone who loved the person who now loves you, and who they loved before you. The past can’t be changed, only less thought of.

Besides, think of it this way- who you go home to at night, who you wake up to in the morning, who you hold like a tidal wave, who you’d rather lie next to than get up- they’re made up of everyone before them. They’re made up of all this previous love, all these different kinds of love, a multitude of different loves and first and last dates, a plethora of hugs and stargazings and the first time they were ever told or said “I love you.” With all that love buried deep within the basement of their heart, they’ve been taught how to be prepared for you. All their previous lovers were just preparing them for loving you. They’ve been taught so well, by some of the best teachers. It’s okay to be the recipient of someone else’s lesson. Remember that.

The person who loves you now, right now- who even as you read this might be touching your neck in that way they do, or smiling at you from across the room, or wishing they could bed you right then and there- they loved someone else before you. And you have to be okay with that, you do.

Because the fact that they love you now, despite loving someone else beforehand, means that you’re pretty damn special.