First of all, I want you to know that there’s absolutely nothing romantic about pain. Absolutely nothing. There ain’t a thing that should be romanticised about your heartache that keeps you up at night or the hand you put over your mouth so no one can hear you crying when it is three a.m.

I want you to know that it’s not the greatest feeling in the world to have a void in your heart that can’t be filled or to feel betrayed or lost and unsure of anything.

I want you to know that feeling like a failure is one of the worst feelings ever and that the sound of your knees hitting the ground out of disappointment is just breaking.

I know it because I have been there. I’ve felt all of this before. The pain of feeling like you’re not good enough became a regular visitor to my mind and sadness became a friend that I learned to smile when I see it.

I know it but as I was sitting the other day, picking at wounds of mine by remembering,I remembered how bad times have been with me sometimes, I remembered the many times I had to face life alone and the times I had to force myself to sleep in an attempt to stop my mind from thinking.

I remembered the days where I didn’t want to get out of bed because my heart was too heavy to carry around. The days where I didn’t want to talk to anybody because no one would understand. No one ever does. Your agony has always been just yours and can only be understood by those who have waited for death like you did.

However,  I remembered something good and way more important. I remembered that I am here now. I remembered that those days have gone and I’ve smiled later. I was so full of anger and melancholy one day but even if a year later, I don’t feel the same. I’m all better.

You know the only time I thought about being a bird was not because I wanted to fly. Actually it was only for the mere hypothesis of being something that is not human because as we’ve been told before, only humans can feel, only humans have a mind so only they can think and I thought of how it’d have been like if I weren’t a human then. How easy would life be.

But here’s what happened, a bird passed by me one day. I was just sitting there and it approached me as it was looking for food crumbles on the ground and as ironic as it may sound, amid all this we looked at each other, we exchanged a look for a few seconds and that felt like something. A man approached that bird, however, and it instantly flew away. Out of fear probably. And I found myself thinking this, what if there’s no escape from human feelings.

I found myself asking this.

What if the most troubling pains we feel are where the point of life lies? What if every time you thought of being a bird, you realized maybe the two of you aren’t so different after all. Or that the only difference between you has been just the wings because flying, flying is something you both can do and you just have to find your own way to it.

What if in the end you’ll all feel the same way, fear the same way and seek a better life just no less.

I thought that maybe it was all in that “seeking” part.

Maybe it is all about me telling you where the beauty lies because I think I now know where it does.

You know that delicate heart of yours, I know it has known suffering. But I saw it, I saw it as it looked sufferings in the eye and dared to survive them all and believe me, I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.

Suffering my dear is not beautiful, but choosing to live through it because you think life is worth fighting for, is.

Having your heart broken because of someone is awful, but choosing to believe in love regardless is a synonym for beauty. 

Anguishing and cutting your hands and being wounded feels like hell but the scars that stay to remind you how you’ve managed through their healing is what bravery feels like.

Feeling like no one is as big a failure as you are but being awakened one day to still choose not to give up counts as the bravest act of all.

I decided to change the way I look at myself being broken and here’s what I have learned.

I have learned compassion. A heart like mine that knew how to suffer, knew how to appreciate people more because someone must have felt the same way. A heart like that knows it can make mistakes, it’s allowed to because that is what actually makes it special and gives it its own uniqueness.

The point from being broken, I realized now, is that a heart that was once broken and sure will be broken again a thousand times, is not vulnerable, instead it is a survivor that knows how to fix itself and that will give you the best life of all. I can guarantee that.