The Strength In Our Scars

by Bianca Sparacino

I am not impressed by beauty anymore. It is not difficult or extraordinary to turn someone on. However, if you have the ability to inspire me, if you have the ability to stimulate my mind and stir my thoughts—well, that makes you magic.

It took me a long time to realize that not everything in life is meant to be a beautiful story. Not every person we feel something deep and moving with is meant to make a home within us, is meant to be a forever. Sometimes, people come into our lives to teach us how to love; and sometimes, people come into our lives to teach us how not to love. How not to settle, how not to shrink ourselves ever again. Yes, sometimes people leave—but that’s okay, because their lessons always stay, and that is what matters. That is what remains.

We use fate as an excuse, as an apology for all of the people we have walked away from; we speak the years from our minds, and say, “if it was meant to happen, it would have.” But we are wrong, because fate does not exist; only effort does. and that is where we fail each other. Because if it was meant to happen, we would have made it happen. If it was meant to be, we would have stayed. We would have fought.

Sometimes courage is a quiet fight, a dim softness within you, that flickers even on your darkest days and reminds you that you are strong, that you are growing—that there is hope.

If it matters to you, if it is important to you, then it is valid.