Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you.
Very often the things we most desire come only after much patience and struggle.
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Richelle Mead (Succubus Blues)
So: the things we want the most are worth the wait? Just summarizing.
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My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
So today I’m getting back up on the wagon. I seem to always be falling off and climbing back on that thing….but I think it’s the fact that I always climb back on that makes the difference.
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The Reluctant Runner
I read this post of hers a little over a week ago. Whenever I thought about going back to the gym or eating an apple instead of chocolate — these words ran through my head [that’s punny! get it?] Moving on: 3 weeks ago I ran a half marathon. It took every ounce of my body and spirit. I took my two weeks off to re-heal the evil tendinitis in my right knee. When I say two weeks off: I mean I took TWO WEEKS OFF of everything. Exercising, eating, caring, etc. [Have you been there? It’s not fun.]
I started thinking about this phenomenon. This happened LAST December. The stress of school almost being out, the holidays, etc. I got a little bummed about it, but then I realized: it’s okay! It’s okay. It’s totally okay. Here’s why: I know how to exercise, I know how to run, I know how to hydrate, I know how to eat, I know how to take care of my body. I most certainly was able to defeat this last December and I can do it again. Hell, I can do it for the rest of my life. It’s the feeling that: it’s life. Life happens. Life has bumps and curves. The important thing is: you pick yourself back up. What I’ve learned about myself is: I always pick myself back up. Always. Always.
I’m goal orientated. I like to work toward things. I like tangible plans. So, that’s what I’ll do. I can run in a week — that’ll be one full month of healing my knee. In the meantime, I can go to the gym and I can certainly start eating better.
In short: Life is a choice. The only way you truly fall of the wagon is if you put it into storage after falling off. My wagon has just collected a little dust in the corner.
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She’s like smoke: you think you’re seeing her clearly enough, but when you reach for her, there’s nothing there.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.
You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.
Distance is only a problem when you can’t meet someone halfway, when one person carries both of you, when it turns out you can’t possibly carry the two of you forever. Eventually, every little problem that shouldn’t be big is too much to carry and you crack. What you couldn’t imagine living without becomes the thing that’s slowly breaking you.
And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter — they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.
One study found that students who felt unconditionally accepted by their teachers were more likely to be genuinely interested in learning and to enjoy challenging academic tasks — as opposed to just doing things because they had to and preferring easier assignments at which they knew they would be successful (Makri-Botsari, 2001).
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could
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Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum (via parkstepp)
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Yo! Her cold has gotten worse! She sounds like T-Pain!
I don’t believe in failure, because simply by saying you’ve failed, you’ve admitted you attempted. And anyone who attempts is not a failure. Those who truly fail in my eyes are the ones who never try at all. The ones who sit on the couch and whine and moan and wait for the world to change for them.
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Sarah Dessen (Keeping the Moon)
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