Pillow Thoughts II: Healing the Heart

by Courtney Peppernell

You will always be my destination, my home, my whole heart. I love to love you.

The saddest ache you will ever know is to wake up one day and realize you have run out of time

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

How many heartbreaks can you survive? All of them Because you are not merely skin and bones You are the light and wonder You are a joy to be known You are the castle a soul calls home

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.

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 jealous of anything, except maybe people with fast cars. But every day I find myself jealous of the things that make up your day. I’m jealous of the coffee you drink, because it has the taste of your lips. I’m jealous of your pillow at night, because it holds all your secrets. I’m jealous of all your blankets, because they’re tangled up in you. I’m jealous of the stars outside your window, because they get to watch you sleep. I’m jealous of all your distractions, because they have your time over me. I’m jealous of the things that keep you awake, because lately I don’t think they’re me. But more than anything, I’m jealous of your 6 a.m., because it’ll never tell you how perfect you look, when you just wake up.

Even if we never see each other again, know that in the moments we held each other’s hearts, you were what I needed most.

I wear your sweaters when you’re at work all day because they smell like you. And when you come home and cannot find them it’s because I am hiding them. Always afraid I won’t have another to wear when I miss you.

You said my arms were the walls to your home So why when I ask you to come home You don’t?

Be tender with your forever

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.

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

All things serve their purpose and then leave, even happiness. We spend our lives wanting to be happy, and then when it arrives, we are scared to lose it. But if you have to let happiness go, it doesn’t mean something else won’t come along. In life, there are many things that have purpose, even if sometimes we don’t realize it.

What makes you happy? Climbing bookshelves, roses about to bloom, organizing your desk drawers and cleaning your room. The wind in your hair as you ride your bike, playing the radio loud. Sipping mojitos in the late-night dusk, rising and falling on the chest of someone you love. Swimming in the lake with no school until next week. Achieving your dreams, being with your friends, dancing outside in a snow-filled street. Drinking coffee and watching movies, writing in journals and waiting for the weekend. The things that make you happy are important. If they make you smile and the stress feels lighter, then you deserve to enjoy them. Do what makes you happy.

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.

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.

The world won’t always love you for who you are. There are too many bodies here. Too many perceptions of what is and isn’t beautiful. So here we are, with most of us uncomfortable in our own skin, wishing to be someone different. Thinking happiness only happens if you fit in. What to do when the world wants you to be prettier, skinnier, curvier, or have lighter or darker skin. You declare your own universe, bright and alive within your veins. You are the king or the queen, the one who makes the rules and ignores everyone who cannot see just how brilliant you are, made from atoms brighter than stars.

Your patience will be tested. You will get frustrated; some days will hurt more than others. But you need to move on from what has already happened, appreciate the things still around you, and embrace the things that are yet to come.

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.

You can break your own heart but you can also heal it

You can build happiness. You plant a seed in your heart and let it grow. Let the happiness spread into your arms so when you hold others they feel it. Let it spread into your legs so when you walk people see it in your step. Keep building day by day, until you have an entire empire.