For Every 20-Something Girl Who Is Giving Up On Love

People are going to lie to you; they are going to hurt you. Your mother, your father, your brother, your friends, your lover, even your cat, they will do shady shit behind your back. When you choose to love someone, you love them the best way you know how, you don’t give up on them when struggle comes, you don’t get to love them less on their bad days, you don’t get to love them less on the days they are not their best self.

You love them more on their off days, you love them harder, and you fight for them to be their best self again.

These days, we are so quick to throw real, raw, and honest, love away. We often let our own stubbornness; bitterness, jealousy and pride ruin a good thing. We let ridiculous things such as Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook turn us into cold blooded creepers. We steal each other’s phones and passwords; we get suspicious when we don’t receive a text after an hour, or when someone doesn’t answer their cellphone after the first ring. I’m not saying we’re all in quite that deep, but I know we’re not all as cool and confident as we like to pretend.

Do not throw away good love for silly reasons.

Do not throw it away over a lie or two, over social media, over anything less than being truly unhappy or truly deserving of more. Stop spending so much time worrying about what people might do, and focus on what they are doing. What-ifs will ruin you. We are all afraid to lose the person we love to somebody else, but guess what, if you are going to lose the person you love to somebody else, there is not a damn thing you can do or say that is going to change that, it’s inevitable. In the end, people are going to do what they want to do. Maybe hurting you came easy for them, maybe it was the hardest thing they’ve ever had to do, in the end, it hurts all the same, but ultimately, others actions are out of our control.

If you believe deep down, that your lover is a good person, that the deepest even darkest parts of them, are truly good, hang on to them. Nobody is perfect, but they are close.

If you want it, you have to fight like hell through the bad days, because trust me, they will come, and they will hurt. Work through them, make peace with them. If you then decide that your time spent together should come to an end, walk away, but walk away without second doubts, walk away without bitterness and without hate. You walk away and you rest assured that you did everything you could for that love, for that person.

You wish them well, but you send them on their way and you start taking better care of your own heart.

Remember, just because something does not last forever, does not mean it was not successful. If you’ve learned something new from that person, if you’ve laughed the hardest you’ve ever laughed with them, if you’ve raised a family with them, if you’ve truly been in love, even if it was only for a few months or for a few years, rest assured, the time you invested was not wasted. Good things are out there, they are coming for you, let them in. Life is too short to worry about getting hurt again, too short to be so cynical, too short to be unforgiving of heartbreak.