What Happens When Inspirational Quotes Stop Working?
I scrambled frantically to find some quote positioned over a sunset background to pin and legitimize my anxious thoughts, to beautify my desperate position. But those quotes in self-love forums and Pinterest boards don’t help us navigate life.
Life is experience.
It’s the phone ringing in that endlessly cheery Nokia ringtone and a voice on the other line telling you that your brother is dying. It’s watching possibilities end, plans changing, and dreams die.
It’s watching your father’s fist hit your face, and hearing the crack of a worn wedding ring against your eye socket.
It’s holding hands on a long car ride home and the realization that you found, without a doubt, someone to call home.
It’s driving home one day and finding out that you are only given the challenges in life that you can handle. And that no matter how much he loves you, he doesn’t have the strength to carry that burden with you.
It’s waking up the next morning, in slow fuzzy consciousness, thinking its a terrible nightmare, and the world crashing down when you reach and no one is there.
It’s the hand holding the knife, and the eye that watches the blood bubble up and smear, just to feel something.
It’s getting let go at a job you quit putting effort into.
It’s slinking back to a family you swore to distance yourself from, in failure and defeat.
It’s hearing your mother tell you that you didn’t deserve for him to listen when you said “no.” That you put yourself in the situation.
it’s mind-shattering pain, and sobbing until you can’t breathe.
It’s moving forward. It’s each broken half step and every stumble up off your knees.
It’s the slow moving endless clock of time.
It’s the luck at landing a job.
It’s a small smile at a sitcom half-way through the heartbreak.
It’s a friend holding you on the bathroom floor as you cry and scream for the last time at the unfairness of it all.
Its’ the first run of fall and watching the leaves blush and burn.
It’s laughing with your siblings exactly how you did as children.
It’s taking responsibility for your actions, your mistakes, and your accomplishments.
It’s the brown eyes of someone crazy about you. It’s knowing you’re not ready.
It’s determination and faith.
It’s getting a raise, and knowing you won’t ever stop performing the best you can.
It’s making standards for yourself, declaring that you won’t be an option, and removing yourself from the equation.
It’s choosing you. Every moment onwards. It’s saying goodbye.
It’s discovering you. Finding out your quirks and treating yourself with love, respect, and honestly.
It’s looking in the mirror and learning:
Every moment shapes you. Every decision leads you to exactly where you are.
Where you need to be. Here.