Pillow Thoughts II: Healing the Heart

by Courtney Peppernell

Sometimes the smallest details about a person are the biggest reasons why you love them

You can’t choose which parts of her you love. Even in all the ugly moments, she should still be the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. People are not perfect, they have flaws. You don’t get to choose which ones to leave out. That’s not honest love.

You always just want more. Longer kisses, longer hugs, more time spent together. You’ll drive around the block five times just to keep them another hour. Everything is another story to the bookshelf you are building. Their happiness becomes just as important as yours. You learn to love what they love. You’ll want to be better. Because they’ve made you better.

I am old enough to make my own choices, and I choose you.

If this is what love feels like, I am seeing you in everything I do.

Love isn’t always about falling in love with a person. Love is passing your final exams. Love is watching the sun come up between the clouds. Love is finding the light when you were in the dark. Love is when your favorite TV show returns. Love is when your dog tilts its head with confusion. Love is a free ice cream voucher left on your car windshield. Love is the leaves falling in the fall. Love is learning the constellations. Love is solving a ridiculous math problem. Love is the changing Starbucks menu for the seasons. Love is watching a child play in the sandbox. Love is warm clothes when they come out of the dryer. When you say you’ve given up on love, all you’re really saying is that you’ve closed your eyes. Open them.

It is said that artists paint portraits of the ones they love. Well, writers do it too. Only they string together sentences about all the things that might be too hard to say in person. Writers don’t just write about nothing. They write about the things kept in the deepest part of their hearts. They write with passion, with meaning. They write to show you that they care. And more than that, they trust you with their words. They give you their words, because they are trying to say “I love you.”

I hope you find a love that listens to you when you need to talk. I hope you find a love that never takes you for granted. I hope you find a love that makes you feel safe. I hope you find a love that wishes for your dreams as much as you do. I hope you find a love that kisses you with such intensity, in that moment you forget how to breathe.

It hurt to love her Days spent wondering if she would get better But she could not save herself and I started to realize we weren’t meant to be and in the end the person I ended up saving was me

There is no such thing as heartlessness. If someone is cruel and unkind, it is because they do not know of the kindness from strangers or the light within love. And if they do not know of light, how sad and lonely they must be, to become demons of the night.

Just because the bruises aren’t visible doesn’t mean they aren’t there

As tragic as it seems as hurtful as it feels if they gave up on you in your worst moment they never really loved you

Just because it hurts doesn’t mean you need to shrink your heart into something that can no longer feel. Open your arms with your face to the sky. We were not made to be easy to love. All that soul inside you will still be heard, even after the day you die.

Because heartbreak can also mean a broken spirit.

If you are not happy, you are not obligated to stay. If they want to make you come undone and make you question all that you are worth, then it’s best to walk away.

You could beg someone to heal you in all the ways you can’t heal yourself. But other people are not bandages. You are your own journey. The pain belongs to you.

But darling, you deserve someone who wants to love you just as much.

But your heart needs to break in ways that don’t seem fair. It needs to survive someone cruel and selfish and unkind. Because you will learn that life is only meant to be lived with someone who respects your hopes and dreams like their own. Heartbreak teaches you the difference between a person who is no good for you and someone who would never leave you alone.

The hardest thing you will ever do in your life is forgive someone who never apologized. But you don’t need to do this for them; you need to do this for yourself.

I’ve never really been good at much other than catching planes and writing things down So if I were to board a plane and find myself in your city I hope you might let me write some things across your skin Like my name and my thoughts and a few reasons why I’d board that plane again and again

Find the kind of love that doesn’t make you question their intentions. Find the kind of love that makes the distance between you worth it.

Sometimes I worry that I won’t find someone. That the person who deserves all this love I have to give is out there with someone else. I worry that I won’t find a love to believe in, that I won’t find a hand that fits with mine. I don’t know how I can miss someone I’ve never met, but I do.

I felt like a book that you had marked with all your favorite pages. Our love was a story that knew no boundaries. But you lost the book and unmarked all the pages, and now I’m missing our story. I’m tired of all the texting Of all the late-night calls I’m tired of the constant Wanting And time feeling like walls I need your breath on my skin Your body asleep next to mine I can’t keep pretending I don’t miss you And that I’m fine

The exact moment, I couldn’t be sure when we went from friends to something more Just like I couldn’t tell you the moment it all fell apart and you left this absence in my heart

And I don’t know how we went from being in love to strangers, but tonight I stood out on the street and watched the guests arrive to the wedding. But it wasn’t our wedding. Because somewhere through the years, I had stopped throwing stones.

It’s always see you in a month or see you in five days I can’t wait until I can say see you tonight

There is great freedom in only having yourself. Not having to worry about supporting anyone else, not having to think or make choices with anyone else in mind. But there is still an ache, some days duller than others, some days not felt until the early hours. It will grasp at you when you think about an achievement and receiving an award and you want someone to be in the corner beaming with pride. You think about it over coffee, when no one is looking at you instead of drinking theirs. In the middle of the night when it’s cold and no one is there breathing gently beside you. When you come home and the house is empty, and even if it’s peaceful and quiet, you would like to share your thoughts with someone as they set dinner on the table. The freedom to belong to yourself is beautiful, but it’s also beautiful to look at someone else and know their favorite moment of the day is when you walk into the room.

Don’t waste your time with people who bring you down. Bitterness is a disease that gets the better of most people, but that doesn’t mean you need to tolerate it. You have flaws just like anybody else. Embrace them, live for them. There is only one you. Forgiveness is happiness. They walk hand in hand. You don’t have to forgive everyone in your life. But you do have to forgive yourself. Every time.

That’s happiness, when you make someone feel safe. You are their person. You are the reason they can talk about their deepest secrets. And in a world of constant shaming, you are the one who makes them feel brave to be themselves.

You need to keep moving forward. You cannot get ahead if you refuse to move.

But you need to stop getting so worked up about things that won’t matter a year from now. It is relevant today, yes, but one day it won’t be. Stop punishing yourself for things that will eventually pass.

Happiness is grown from a seed, to a flower, to a forest. Trust your ability to water this seed. Trust the kindness of others and the help from those you hold dearest.

The energy you put into the world isn’t always the same energy you will receive. You could be a ball of light and still be met with people who try to lock you in the dark. What is important is the energy you keep for yourself. Keep the light burning.

To be happy isn’t always to be with others. Some of life’s greatest thinking is done while we are alone. Other people can’t learn to breathe again for you. Other people can’t feel or see or hear things in the way you do. Sometimes being happy is stepping away from the things you know. It’s breathing in and out and watching your soul grow.

Rushing won’t help you in standstill traffic any more than thinking you need to be somebody else will. You have your whole life ahead of you, no matter what age you are. Fill it with things that make you get up in the m...

You are not emotional or too soft. There are things in life that will try to turn your heart to stone. They will leave you bruised and angry, with feelings you have never known. But to be patient, to feel warmth when people turn cold, is both brave and radiant.

People like to talk about their passions. They like to tell you about the things that make them happy. And you can see the switch, the light that pours out of them when they are speaking of the things they love. Listen to someone when they are talking. Don’t shut them down or tell them that their passions don’t matter. It’s the simplest way to ruin another human being.

Some chapters don’t have happy endings. But you read on anyway, and I think that’s the point. Not to be happy all the time but to know the sun always comes back around.

But you don’t deserve to be ignored. The things you have to say are important; you should never allow someone to make you feel as though they aren’t. You should never tolerate someone who can’t acknowledge the news you have to share. You don’t need this in your life. Let go of people who don’t make you happy.

You can’t skip chapters, that’s not how life works. You have to read every line, meet every character. You won’t enjoy all of it. Hell, some chapters will make you cry for weeks. You will read things you don’t want to read, you will have moments when you don’t want the pages to end. But you have to keep going. Stories keep the world revolving. Live yours, don’t miss out.

Happiness won’t always be around. There will be days when it feels hidden and nowhere to be found. But your smile keeps the happiness alive, and your laugh too. There is nothing more important than taking care of you. Sometimes we fall in love with someone’s potential. We ignore their behavior because we believe they can be better. But a person doesn’t change unless they want to. Your happiness is more important than hanging on to someone else’s potential.