Lauren Jarvis-Gibson

Your bed is your safe haven. No one can hurt you there. No one can bother you. No one has to see if you’re in a terrible state or mood. Your bed is the only place where you can be your true self.

You could be out with your girls for happy hour, or kicking back on a Sunday watching football with your best friends, when suddenly your heart beats at a scary rate, and you feel like you’re going to be sick. It’s really terrifying to experience this, especially when it seems to be coming out of nowhere. 

If you feel something, whether it’s joy or deep depression, you feel it to a really powerful extent. You feel deeply and so incredibly, that sometimes it can overwhelming for you. You never just feel ‘okay’ or ‘fine’. Your emotions are high on both sides of the spectrum. 

We want love so badly, that we have turned it into something less. Something laughable. Something temporary. Something dull.

And I will not waste my time with you if you aren’t what I need. I will not waste my time with you if you are not the person that matters most to me. I will not waste my time with someone who questions me. With someone who questions my heart and my value as a human being.

Some day, when the wind picks up and the leaves turn from a mint green to a rusty orange, you’re going to think of them. And one day, out of the blue, you’re going to walk to a place they used to go to and you’re going to wish you were holding their hand. 

Know that she is a go getter. Know that she is a strong woman. She is resilient. She isn’t with you for fun, or for a fling. She is with you for the real deal. She is with you because she sees something good in you. She is with you because she sees a future. Because you are someone special. And she deserves something special. She deserves someone special. 

You blame the world, your sister, your friends, your parents and strangers for your shortcomings and for your pain. You never take responsibility for your actions and mistakes and suffer as a result of it.

But I had to survive. I had to learn how to breathe the air that wasn’t full of your oxygen. I had to learn how to walk without your hand leading the way. I had to learn how to smile without your grin pulling me forward. I had to learn how to be. How to go. Without your love.

The truth is, he isn’t ever going to care. He isn’t ever going to come back. He isn’t going to wake up one day and come running towards you. And if he does? It’s only temporary. Because boys like that always want better and bigger and different. Boys like that only stick around until they get what they want. And then they vanish.

It hurt more to know that I had trusted him, when he was messing around with someone else behind my back. It hurt more to know that I thought we were on the same page, when we clearly weren’t. It hurt more to know that I cared more. I always cared more.

The right person for you will love your every flaw. Even if it drives them crazy, wild and insane, they will still love those characteristics. They will still love you, despite it all. Despite the ugly days

And you could say it’s my fault. My fault for being naive. My fault for being dumb. My fault for being a silly little girl, a hopeless romantic, a dreamer. You could say it was my fault for hearing him tell me he didn’t want anything serious and ignoring it. You could say it’s my fault for thinking I could change his mind.

We are the generation that views instant gratification as love. We are the generation that is constantly on the hunt for the next best thing, the next best chase, the next big heart to break.

I’m always living in the unknown. Always on edge just waiting for the floor to collapse under me. Always just waiting for the people I love to go away as soon as I feel stable. Always waiting for my happiness to disappear as soon as I learn how to smile again.

How do we learn to trust and to learn and to love other people when the people that promised us forever went away?

We fret over the smallest of things. We overthink until we feel like our heads will explode. We think and think and think. It never turns off. It never disappears. It never slows or quiets down. It never stops, no matter how happy we are and no matter how in love we are with our lives or other people.

You ruin a perfectly good relationship by not giving anything back to your partner when they desperately need your compassion. By not lending them ears when they are having a hard time. By not lending them your shoulder to cry on when they are depressed or anxious or blue. You ruin a perfectly good relationship by not caring about what they need and want.