The Strength in our Scars

Page 97

There is more to life than the person who walked
away from you. There is more to life than chasing after
someone who does not want to be in yours.

Trust me when I say—there is more to life.

There is laughing until your stomach aches more than
your healing.

There is going out with friends and kissing their faces
and talking to them about atoms and the universe and
the fact that you are so damn lucky to be living at the
same time as them, that you are so damn thankful you
got to experience life with them by your side. They’ll
scoop you into their arms and they will hug you so
tight that it will feel as if all of your broken pieces
have finally come together again.

There are warm summer evenings where the skies are
dusted in rose and peach, the kind of evenings that feel
like salt water for your soul, the kind of evenings that
cleanse you and hold you and make you feel so small
and so big at the same time.

There are corner coffee shops with mugs in every shade
of feeling where you will read the paper and pretend
that you’re in Paris or Spain and sip too strong coffee
as you learn to be alone.

There are crystallizing moments in the middle of
crowds where you will connect with the fact that your
hands don’t feel as heavy anymore, that your heart is
floating above water for the first time in months, that
you feel happy and light and full of hope.

But most of all—there is you, in all of your glory
and heart, learning how to love yourself day by day.
There is you, in all of your depth, living and feeling
and existing despite the hurt, despite the loss.
There is you being your own person, being your own
strength. There is you being there for yourself, for
the first time in a long time. There is you finding your
own happiness.

Now that is something worth chasing. That is something
to care about.