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Copyright © 2020 Bianca Sparacino. All rights reserved.
Published by Thought Catalog Books, an imprint of the digital magazine Thought
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Made in the United States of America.
ISBN 978-1-949759-29-7
for the deep feelers
3
The right person will know how to hold your love.
The right person will choose you just as deeply as you
choose them. You will not have to quiet the way you
care, you will never feel like you are too much. You
will not have to beg for the love you deserve. One day,
you will be met where you are. One day, you will be
someone's favorite thing, and you will not be confused
— you will not feel like you are fighting for someone
who isn't fighting for you. One day, you will understand that it never mattered how tightly you held on
to the wrong people, how intensely you tried, because
the right people were always going to find you. The
right people were always going to stay.
5
Remember — even the strongest souls get exhausted.
The strongest human beings, the ones who laugh the
loudest and hope the hardest, the ones who are always
there for others — those souls often need people there
for them. So, please — check on your kind friends.
Check on the people in your life who are tender, the
ones who are always open to give so much of who
they are for those who need it. Check on the people
in your life who love with every ounce of their being, who feel deeply and care deeply, and try to fix
and mend and make sure that those around them are
okay. Please, just check on the people in your life who
are brave, who are soft for this world. Check on the
people in your life who protect others at all costs —
because those souls need protecting, too. Those souls
need to be reminded that they deserve the love they
keep giving to everyone else.
6
You have to let go. You have to let go because when
you hold on, when you keep something alive inside
of you, you are allowing for your past to take up the
space in your heart and in your mind that is meant for
your future. You have to let go because at the end of
the day, if you are going to find the human being who
is going to bring you the deepest kind of joy, if you
are going to find the person who is going to help you
experience the kind of love you have always deserved
— you have to make sure that you are ready for it.
You have to make sure that you will be open to it, and
you cannot make a home within your heart for the
person who will someday care for you in the softest
of ways if someone else's memory is still living there.
You have to let go. You have to accept that sometimes
beautiful things end, that sometimes people leave, that
sometimes two human beings don't beat the odds, and
you have to find closure in that. You have to heal.
You have to move forward, you have to believe in the
version of you that is laughing in bed on a Sunday
morning with the person they love twenty years from
now, because you deserve that future. It is waiting for
you. Choose it.
7
It is okay to take your time. We live in a generation
that romanticizes moving forward as quickly as possible when it comes to careers and our futures and our
success within them. But there is no point in rushing
quickly towards a life that will not inspire you or fulfill
you. It is okay to slow down. It is okay to take the time
you need. You are in no rush to figure out your own
soul. It's never too late to start over, it's never too late
to change your mind, it's never too late to redirect yourself, to replace the dreams you thought you wanted for
the ones that genuinely excite and challenge you.
So keep going — because the world needs your uniqueness. It needs your talent, your art, your mind. The
world needs you to take up space within that, so you
can change it with the vision that you have. You are
so deeply capable of doing something beautiful with
your life. Don't let roadblocks, or self-doubt, or the
way your journey is unfolding convince you otherwise. Leap towards all that scares and ignites you. Just
try for something while you're here.
8
If it is for you, trust
that it will find you.
9
Maybe right now, your journey isn't about love.
Maybe right now, your journey is about being alone.
Maybe this is the season you are being challenged —
to learn how to wake up in the middle of the bed,
to finally find hope in the vacancy, hope in the quiet,
hope in the way you stretch into your life and give
yourself permission to take up space within it. Maybe
right now, you are being shown — that you can take
care of yourself, that you can depend on the person
you have become, that you can be your own home no
matter what comes your way.
Maybe right now, your journey is about redemption.
Maybe this is the season you are being challenged to
make amends with your heart, to stand up for the
vast ways in which it loves, and cares, and believes
in the goodness of vulnerability, and expression, and
being the person who softens even when the world is
not gentle. Maybe right now you are getting a second
chance — to trust in it, and to forgive yourself for giving it away to those who could not value it; but most
importantly, maybe right now you are being called to
protect it, to find your way back into your tenderness,
to find your way back into your soul.
No, maybe right now your journey isn't about love.
Maybe right now your journey is about hope. Maybe
10
this is the season you are being challenged to remind
yourself of the beauty life has to offer you. Maybe
right now, you are being given the space to discover
the kinds of places that leave your bones dripping with
feeling, the kinds of songs that are yours and yours
alone, the kinds of people who love you in a way that
does not seek to change you. Maybe right now, you
are being given a chance to reclaim your joy, to make
it the most natural extension of who you are, to let it
spill out of your words, and your laughter, and your
tears — to let it be something you believe you are worthy of, to let it be something you believe you deserve.
See, maybe right now your journey isn't about love.
Maybe right now your journey is about you. Maybe
this is the season you are being challenged to be your
own savior, to be your own safe place. Maybe right
now you are being reminded — that the people who
walked away were only ever leading you back to yourself, were only ever leading you here. And here, you
are okay on your own. Here, you are rebuilding. Here,
you are adapting, and mending, and reclaiming all of
the pieces you let them walk away with. Here, you are
being kinder to your soul, you are giving yourself the
same kind of love you have always given to others.
Here, you are not rushing your heart, you are not depending on another human being to fix it. Instead, here,
you are doing that on your own. Here, you are healing.
11
When you are ready to put your heart into this world
again, do not look for the same kind of love you have
experienced; resist the urge to compare the human
beings that come into your life to the ones that have
left. Because the truth is — two loves will never be
the same. Love is like a fingerprint, curated between
two individual souls, and within that it is always its
own rare and beautiful thing, an extension of who you
both were within those moments in time. In moving
on, in dealing with the breaking and the rebuilding of
your heart, you grow. You become a different person,
and in turn the love you need, the love that will nourish you and inspire you and meet you where you are
now — that grows as well. That changes.
12
When you are ready to put your heart into the world
again, do not look for the kind of love you recognize,
for the kind of love that mirrors something that did
not beat the odds. Instead, search for the kind of love
you need — as you are, in this season of your life. Do
not compare it or doubt it when it arrives, because
it will be different. It will always be different. It will
hold you differently, and it will say your name differently, and it will laugh differently, and hope differently, and you will make different memories within it;
you will feel it in your bones in a way that you won't
be able to express, in a way that will feel new and
somewhat scary, but right. Do not seek familiarity, do
not keep searching for your past in your future. Trust
what comes.
13
No one will ever fully be able to understand the internal
battles you had to endure just to heal, just to grow, just
to make it here today. Be proud of the way you fought
to save yourself. Be proud of the way you survived.
14
If something ignites you — chase it. Chase it, because
you don't want to look back in two years, or five years,
or twenty years and wonder what would have been.
Chase it, because you don't want to think back to all
of the potential, and all of the beauty, you missed out
on because you were afraid, or because you let an idea
of yourself that was untrue rob you of your joy or
your capacity to move confidently in the direction of
the things that inspired you. Chase it — because you
can, because you deserve to experience what is profound and remarkable in this world, because you are
worthy of the things that make your chest tighten with
happiness and wonder. Chase it, because you never
know what is waiting for you on the other side of your
comfort. You never know what is waiting for you on
the other side of your hope.
15
I hope you have the courage to keep loving deeply in
a world that sometimes fails to do so. In a generation
that orders up attention like they order up a meal, in
a generation that has started to love with one foot out
the door, I hope you have the courage to believe that
genuine connection still exists. And I hope you have
the courage to stand up for that, to open yourself to
it when you start to feel it bloom within the heart of
you. I hope you have the courage to appreciate it for
all that it is, to not approach it wearing a mask, to not
try to desensitize yourself to it or play it cool. Please,
I hope you have the courage to crash your heart into
the people life gifts you. I hope you have the courage to believe that goodness still exists, that there are
those who have the capacity to love the way you do,
that there are those who will see you and grow you
and teach you more about the world. I hope you have
the courage to fight for connection. I hope you have
the courage to go deeper. To never exist on the surface
of your life, even if it's easier or more convenient. At
the end of the day you should leave this world with a
heart that is worn-out and soft all over. A heart that
is bruised from loving, and feeling, and caring in the
best way possible. At the end of the day, you should be
proud of your inability to be anything but open to the
world. You should be proud of who you are.
16
I hope you have the courage to do the hard work. I
hope you have the courage to sit down with your demons, to befriend them; to look them in the face and
to not feel fear. I hope you have the courage to stop
picking or numbing or avoiding the wounds within,
and I hope you choose to heal them instead. I hope
you have the courage to understand yourself, fundamentally — to open up the deepest, darkest parts
of your mind, to unhinge your rib cage revealing the
gritty parts of your soul, the parts no one else claps
for, and I hope you have the courage to clean them
out. To forgive yourself for what you had to do to
kill your sadness. To forgive yourself for the ways in
which you didn't fight for the person you were becoming. I hope you have the courage to nurture your pain,
to not disregard it or sweep it under the rug of distraction or convenience. I hope you have the courage to
heal yourself, even when it hurts.
I hope you have the courage to know when to end
things. And I hope you have the courage to see endings as beautiful, transformative stepping stones. I
hope you have the courage to let love and opportunity move through you like rain. To not grip, or seek
to change it, to not ask people or circumstances to
be more than they can be for you. I hope you have
17
the courage to see endings as the cornerstones of the
chapters that changed you without needing them to be
a part of the rest of your story.
And when that is done, I hope you have the courage
to give yourself closure. To be your own home. To be
your own safe place. I hope you have the courage to
not let the losses destroy you, to not let them burrow
into the heart of who you are and convince you that
you failed, or that you are unworthy of the happiness
you are standing up for in your life. I hope you have
the courage to see the way in which you loved and
tried and fought for something as a testament to just
how deeply your capacity to feel is, just how beautiful
moments can be when you appreciate them for what
they were instead of nullifying them or letting them
harden you to the world. Please, I hope you have the
courage to move forward. I hope you have the courage to walk away with grace.
I hope you have the courage to do things differently,
to be the kind of person who takes the risk, to be the
kind of person who leads with their heart and shows
up in their life with a ruthless dedication to learning
and growing and enjoying the hell out of their moments here. I hope you have the courage to never let
comfort or apprehension convince you that you are
better off staying still. I hope you have the courage
18
to trust the part of yourself that knows there's more
out there for you, the part of yourself that is easy to
quiet when you're trying to live by the rules and the
expectations of a world that has bred so much dissatisfaction and sadness. I hope you have the courage to trust the part of yourself that seeks freedom
from those trends, from those boundaries, and I hope
you have the courage to go after whatever it is that
genuinely makes you want to get up in the morning.
I hope you have the courage to find the things in life
that ignite you and deepen your understanding of the
world and those within it. I hope you have the courage
to fight for a future that inspires you, even if it doesn't
look the way you thought it would. I hope you have
the courage to change. I hope you have the courage to
trust in the person you're becoming.
19
Listen to the part of yourself
that knows there's more
out there for you.
20
The kindest people are not born that way, they are
made. They are the souls that have experienced so
much at the hands of life, they are the ones who have
dug themselves out of the dark, who have fought to
turn every loss into a lesson. The kindest people do
not just exist — they choose to soften where circumstance has tried to harden them, they choose to believe
in goodness, because they have seen firsthand why
compassion is so necessary. They have seen firsthand
why tenderness is so important in this world.
21
You deserve to be loved the way you love others. You
deserve to feel seen. You deserve to sleep beside someone who does not try to quiet your heartbeat, or your
passion, or the way you show up in this world. You
deserve to be with the kind of person who loves all
of your twists and does not try to untie them. You
deserve to love someone who does not judge you for
the ways in which you had to kill your sadness, someone who does not hold your past against you. You
deserve to be chosen and to never be loved in halves.
You deserve someone who is sure of you; you deserve
someone who stays.
However, you also deserve to be this person for yourself. For your capacity to be alone, your capacity to
be your own home, your own foundation, is going
to directly reflect the way you love these human beings when they come into your life. When you know
yourself, when you stand up for your heart, you do
not bankrupt who you are just to keep half-loves in
your life. Love becomes less about filling a void, love
becomes less about possession, less about dependence,
and it transforms into something that can be fully and
deeply appreciated and felt, because you are not afraid
that its loss will destroy you. You are not afraid of being without it, because you know that you will always
have yourself.
22
The bravest thing
you will ever do
is learn how to love
the things that made you.
23
If you are trying to forget someone who was once a
beautiful part of your life, the answer is — you don't.
You don't try to sanitize your experience, you don't
try to cut the pain from the bone. You don't downplay
it. You don't try to sweep it under the rug or hide it
away. Letting go of someone you thought would be in
your life forever is difficult; sometimes circumstance
gets in the way. Sometimes, no matter how much love
is there, you have to lay it down. You have to walk
away. You have to accept that sometimes you get too
big for it, or you want different things, or you cannot
pour yourself out for it any longer. And that is okay.
But if you managed to find someone who cared for you,
who saw you, who heard all of the horrible and haunted things you did in your life and still loved you harder,
still thought it all shone like gold — that is special. You
shouldn't forget that. You should be thankful for it.
Be thankful that you got to feel that way about someone.
Be thankful for all of the mornings, and all of the
nights, you got to wrap your limbs within theirs.
Be thankful for the way they cracked your heart open.
24
Be thankful for the way they challenged you and
calmed you and made you believe in the person you
were becoming.
Be thankful for the fact that they saw you in ways you
didn't see yourself.
Be thankful for the fact that you risked for love, that
you unhinged your rib cage and opened yourself up
in a world that sometimes favors playing it cool over
leaping towards connection.
Be thankful that you found this person, in a world of
billions, and for a moment in time, even if it was fleeting, you got to dive into the soul of them.
Just be thankful and walk away with grace. Walk
away with gratitude. Walk away knowing that you felt
something, that you experienced something a lot of
people haven't, and in that way — you were changed.
Love is not meant to be possessed. It is meant to be
felt. Be proud of yourself for feeling so deeply, appreciate it for what it was, and let that love go off into
the world and change others the way it changed you.
25
Move on — not for anyone else, not to prove to anyone that you can, but rather, do it for yourself. Do it for
your future. Let go of what is heavy within you. Move
forward with the lessons, carry them inside of yourself.
Move on, not because you have something to prove to
the outside world, but because you have something to
prove to your heart, you have something to prove to
your soul. You are worth saving. Save yourself.
26
I think it's beautiful — the way you show up in this
world, unguarded and willing to try again, despite
all of the ways it has tried to defeat you. I think it's
beautiful, the way you tuck courage into yourself each
morning, the way you refuse to be anything but hopeful in this world, despite the inner battles you fight,
despite the struggles you have experienced for so long.
I think it's beautiful — the way you twist your losses
into lessons, the way you fight even when you feel
weak. You are not weak. There is a resounding level of
courage to be found in being the person who continues to heal, even when it hurts. There is a resounding
level of bravery to be found in being the person who
believes in the light, even when they cannot see it.