note to self

i. people will always surprise you. just when you think you've seen the worst or the best, you'll take in the proximal scent of a candlelight dinner gone wrong and it will cloud your judgement. it'll either make you believe in magic or catastrophe, which one are you really more afraid of? you never really know anyone. just what they choose to show and what you choose to see, and I think a purple butterfly told me that (where is my carving? did I give you something to carve? that's probably my fault) but I've chosen to see the best in people who don't know me enough to know that they've disappointed me.

ii. "you decided a long time ago that you're going to fight your battles alone." don't ever think someone will prove you wrong. opening up will always make you feel weak and you may feel lighter for the tiniest moment but it'll come back ten-thousand-knotfold and grab you, stomach-lining-first till you're gasping for air though you promised you'd never break. you. will never break.

iii. oh hey, you poured your heart out in this? so what? there's no technique, no fucking finesse and my opinion matters because I've read fucking Homer without a translation, you get that?

iv. if someone stands up for you without you asking for it, take a moment to be mad. it's okay. you didn't ask for it. and hell, if they don't know shit about it, please continue to rip their ballless heads off as well, it's okay. they don't know what needs to be said and you're not an accident waiting to happen. you're not asking for help and most importantly, you didn't ask them for help. there is a price to pay for every ignorant man you come across; weren't you always a giver?

v. if you don't see the regret in their arched backs and remorse every time they begin a sentence, you don't have to forgive them.

vi. you're a writer? awesome. no, you're not going to like yourself for a very long time. no, no one is going to fall in love with you for you till you figure out what you are. yeah, there's a chance that might happen but knowing how well you manage with stable people, I'd take care of who you let it. you obviously have terrible taste in people. no, you're not going to be better tha-- hold on. take this:
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it, because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

vii. for her, love is this formal, mutual understanding and you will never get it. for you, love is still supposed to be an instant spark and then you fall deeper and deeper with how quiet it is and how much 4 am feels like home till you're filled to the brim with expectations and then communication happens, understanding happens and love keeps happening again and again till it becomes a constant you are so aware of. love becomes a blessing and not a wish, not one you forget to be grateful for. love isn't, "I love you too," it is only, "more. more. I love you more." love is not a reciprocation, it's a shaded region in a Venn diagram but you have to keep up with it to know if it's the intersection that was shaded in the first place.

viii. shut up. love yourself. stop giving yourself over to assholes who you think will love you for you. the only reason this is so important is because no one else can do it for you.

ix. man the fuck up. this is embarrassing.