Nikita Gill

We teach our daughters shame from the moment they are old enough to walk. Cross your legs, that’s not ladylike, girls don’t act that way, stopembarrassingme.

A friend whilst she was fighting a very aggressive form of cancer, once said to me, “Stop living in ‘forevers’ because forever isn’t yours to give away.

Just for a while, stop looking behind you.

Take a bus, take a train, take your car, just choose a mode of transport that takes you on a journey you have never been before.

We need more of you in the world.

I just want you to know, you haunt me.

1. Your existence needs validation from no one but your own soul. Destroy any voice inside of you that says otherwise. 2.

The sad thing is, I loved you enough to want to hurry my own journey, to pretend that you had fixed me, to allow you to let me think that the damage was gone.

This is for you, the ones who refuse to sit down when you see injustice, the ones who aren’t afraid to be themselves even if it means being friendless, the ones who are told they are wrong, wrong, wrong all…

Because that is what breaking up is. The death of a life that you once imagined with him, a grave appearing inside your head in which you bury your memories so they don’t hurt you.

So here’s a truth you may not want to hear. You aren’t supposed to forget. That is not how you can let go.

You are damaged and broken and unhinged. But so are shooting stars and comets.

Let us raise girls who don’t just wait to be rescued, but take their destiny in their own hands.

Remember the determined young person you used to be. And believe in yourself again.

The truth is, people are different. So the way they love is completely different.

This is what depressed people mean when they say they feel devoured by sadness, unable to escape the pain inside their own heads.

Listen child, the world is not an easy place to live in.

We give it power because we want to, and honestly? There are at least a hundred other things you can be, you should want to be other than beautiful.