Pillow Thoughts II: Healing the Heart

by Courtney Peppernell

You have every right to love your solitude Being alone doesn’t always mean you are lonely

I spend half the morning thinking about your phone call, and when we were up all night talking. How I felt the effect of your words on my heart. I lie in bed and I think of you. I know you come with baggage, but so do I. I know you’re scared because of how others treated you. But as the sun rises and sets, I’m falling in love with all the things you do.

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

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.

You are not more than I can handle. Even if you come with a suitcase full of insecurities, I will still want to know you. Even if there are days when you are crying and don’t believe in your worth, I will still want to hold you. I know you have struggled; so have I. I know that things are hard on you; me too. But it doesn’t change how big your heart is. I am old enough to make my own choices, and I choose you.

We aren’t perfect, we never will be. But I love talking to you, I love telling you how I feel and having you listen to me. And I love listening to you too. All your hopes and dreams and insecurities. Because when everything fades away and our age begins to show, all we will have left is to listen. And because I love the sound of your voice and the echoes of your soul, I will listen to you for the rest of your life. Your thoughts mirror my thoughts, together, two parts of a whole.

I daydream about the day you will be my wife. It’ll be Christmastime, and our children will be asleep while we are in the living room by the tree, trying to be quiet but giggling over wine. You will still look beautiful in pajamas with your hair past your shoulders, and I’ll still love the tree lights even if we are getting older. We will try to guess what our boy and girl will say after they notice the half-eaten cookie and the drop of milk left on the plate and tray. And my heart will flutter as you kiss my lips, and we’ll say “Merry Christmas,” because life was meant to be just like this.

I didn’t stand a chance, the minute I saw you across the hall. In the blink of an eye my heart was yours. Now I’m wondering if destiny exists, if fate rests in our hands and makes us fall so in love we can barely stand. I want to know the taste of your lips, and how far I would go to keep you safe. Even if I have loved long before, this time my heart is beating loud. We’ve been taking photographs to hang up on the wall, of memories and adventures and days lived together, and yet I still remember the moment I saw you across the hall.

Maybe that’s what life is about, you wait for that person who you could listen to for hours. That person who is going to have a real conversation with you, make you laugh, make you feel a little lost when you hang up the phone.

When she puts her arms around you, she will make you feel safe, but rarely will she take you in her arms. She will call you late at night when the radio is playing her favorite song and tell you how much it reminds her of you. But these are the same songs she has dedicated to those before you. Listen to her when she’s crying; it’s one of the only times she will tell you the truth. She will pretend to understand you, and you’ll believe her when she says she loves all your flaws. She will tell you she wants all the same things you do, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t know what she wants. She will tell you that you are the only thing she needs, but you aren’t. She will want others. She will believe she is always right even when she’s not and you know she’s not, but you’ll stop arguing anyway. You’ll stay because her selfishness and her recklessness don’t seem less than ordinary. Everyone around you will constantly say how beautiful she is, a work of art, someone extraordinary. Until the day she shows the true colors underneath her mask. They will be dark and dangerous and in your hesitation, you might survive. You might just dodge a bullet. For the person who loves her next, because I couldn’t.

You still love them, even if they no longer love you. There is bravery in letting go of a love you thought you knew. There is no shame in wanting someone who doesn’t want you back. But darling, you deserve someone who wants to love you just as much.

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.

The distance is bearable most days. What with being able to call you, text you pictures throughout my day. We can stay up late on video call, I can see your face and smile, we can plan visits in between classes and make playlists to last awhile. But the moment it becomes too hard is when you’re sad and I can’t hold you.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You are looking for evidence to prove that they don’t love you, when there is all this evidence that proves they do. When they hang your sweater in the closet after you come home from work, when they leave you notes on the kitchen counter to have a good day, when you don’t feel like cooking so they order pizza. Someone doesn’t have to say “I love you” for it to be true.

I hope you find someone who loves you so fiercely you won’t feel the need to cover your face the morning after, afraid for them to see you bare and naked.

If you like to dream or think or wear your heart on your sleeve, then do that. People like to tear others down when they are happy, and more so when they’re successful. They’ll try to find faults because they can’t believe the same success isn’t happening to them.

The rain clouds return to the sky, as does the sun, the moon, and the stars. Your heart is allowed to cry as much as it is to laugh. Feel what makes your pulse race in the early hours. Good is coming your way soon.

There are people out there telling you to be more than beautiful. As if being beautiful doesn’t carry its own magic. Beauty is defined as you see fit. If being intelligent, funny, wild, adventurous, and honest is your definition of beautiful, then be beautiful.

Some people don’t deserve your love. They will take you for granted, toss you aside when it seems easier to be selfish. You need to be strong every time they come knocking. Don’t open the door.