I think I’m closer to understanding the chaos of life.

I think I’m starting to understand why we have to go through excruciating pain, why we have to have our world turn upside down, so we can figure out a different road, so we can find a new direction and find our voice, our calling, our faith or just start thinking about an exit. An exit that frees us from our own limitations, our barriers and how we can be our own worst enemies if we’re not careful with how we handle obstacles or how we cope with pain.

I think I’m starting to understand the benefits of heartbreak. It humbles you. It makes you realize that no matter who you are and what you do, you’re still not for everyone and not everyone will admire you the way you think they will. It teaches you what to look for and what to avoid, it teaches you how love alone is not enough and how to consider other factors that are just as important as love and it teaches you the hard way of loving yourself or how to love yourself through rejection.

It teaches you how to love yourself even when people leave you, even when they fail to give you closure and even when they pick someone else. It teaches you how to believe that you’re enough and stop looking for validation from someone who can easily change their mind about you.

I think I’m starting to understand the confusion behind it all. How we’ll never have the right answers, how the timing will never be right, how nothing will go exactly the way we want it to, how life is just always going to be unpredictable, you’ll never really anticipate the waves coming but you’ll always find a way to swim through them, you’ll always find a way to get back up when you fall down and you’ll always find a way to let love in.

You’ll always be inspired to keep going one way or another. You’ll always believe that better things are coming because you weren’t born to give up, you weren’t born to choose a miserable life and you weren’t born to die before you live.

I think I’m starting to understand that even though I’ll never comprehend everything life is trying to tell me or teach me, I’ll always try to live it. I’ll always try to smile and I’ll always try to make it a life worth remembering. A life I’m proud of even if I couldn’t make all my dreams come true. A life that’s mostly difficult but also quite delightful.

Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.