I can tell you honestly that I don’t regret anything. If I have any strengths, one is definitely the ability to tie what was into what is and what is into what’s next, to understand things in the context of why they needed to happen, not why I didn’t want them to at the time.

It took me a long time to realize that you could be happy for no reason. It took me even longer to realize that not everything needed meaning. I didn’t understand that the illusion of control that came from trying to manipulate every possible outcome of a situation wouldn’t change what was inevitable. I actually didn’t always know what was best for myself. The things I have lost were always somehow replaced by things that were more worth finding.

I am most grateful I never got what I thought I deserved.

I used to think I missed out on beautiful people and careless days and the simple nothingness of not having any real responsibilities. But those were dreams other people had and I adopted because I didn’t know myself. It took me a long time to realize that “loving yourself” wasn’t some narcissistic thing or some self-help-bullshitted-nonsense but the very simple realization that you of all people deserve to be kind to yourself.

We never realize that replacing what’s not broken won’t fix what is. We never realize that a relationship will not save us. We never realize that when we arrive at the juncture of whether to try harder or move on, it almost always means it’s time to let go. And we grapple with it because we never realize what letting go means: simply that we, at no point, are actually permitting anything to leave. We’re just permitting ourselves to come to terms with the truth that it’s already gone.

We never realize that we are more capable of doing the things that matter than we think we are. We tie ourselves up with our anxieties when at the end of the day we always look back and realize the path was paved for us. We just had to stop questioning what we already knew to be true. We are always compelled to act when we’re meant to. The tides usually turn us on their own. We don’t always have to swim. The real art of being is learning to float.

We never realize that often, the only thing that we look back and regret is not having enjoyed what we had when we had it. We mistake light and freeness as being naive and unprepared. We associate holding onto anxiety and fear as being a defense mechanism. But it’s not. We never realize that the only freedom is in renouncing defense against fear.

We never realize that we always know the answers, and we see them in little, intuitive glimpses. That we can look back and see the foreshadowing, the patterning, the reality of the knowing we had without the reality to back it up. The future is the unfolding of past, the creation of what we already knew would be. We’re never really surprised by what we’re handed, but we never realize we wanted it until it’s too late.