Read This If: A Collection of Essays that Prove Someone Else Gets it, Too- Thought Catalog

this is a book that i read quite a while ago but i stumbled onto some of the pages that resonated w me back then, that still do even now. maybe they'll resonate w you too:

"the problem with other people is that they're never going to understand us as intricately as we understand ourselves. we grow disappointed in the people around us because we use our own definition of love to measure what they are giving out and if it doesn't match up, we mistake different love for no love"


"i don't think i've experienced a single loss in my life that i've gotten over in the time frame that seems to have been allotted by society as 'acceptable'"


"it's not human nature to let go. we are, at our core, territorial creatures. we fight to hold onto what we love. giving up isn't in any way instinctual"


"you let someone go at the grocery store when their favorite type of soup is on sale and you don't buy it. you let them go again when you're cleaning your bathroom and have to throw out the bottle of body wash that smells like them... sometimes you're going to have to let one person go a thousand different times, a thousand different ways, and there's nothing pathetic or abnormal about that. you are human. and it isn't always as simple as making one decision and never looking back"


"it's okay to not be there yet. it's okay to be unsure of every step that you take forward. we don't talk about how moving on sometimes feels like we're fighting every part of our most basic instincts, but we should. we should talk about how growth is often every bit as painful as it is beautiful"


"we need to keep track of our time as it's running closer and closer to empty. we need to remember to open our hearts and our minds and our thoughts and our lives up to each other, while we still have the time left to connect. we need to stay up too late and put in too much effort and be bold enough to take all of the chances that we're terrified to take on each other. we have to remember to live every day as if the next will be our greatest goodbye, because this is the greatest gift that we can give one another. the strength to live with a wide-open heart"


"the irony of growing up is that in order to do so authentically, we have to stop trying so hard. experience comes to us most fully in the moments that we do not expect and that we deal with entirely greenly... we cannot plan for the things that truly matter"


"the world is too harsh, but also too quiet. you will hear the angry words the loudest"