Pillow Thoughts III: Mending the Mind

by Courtney Peppernell

I have good days And bad days And on both I am thinking of you

I’ve been thinking about the younger me. What I would have told her now. How as you get older there are more and more responsibilities. Like laundry and bills and car registrations. Like renewing phone plans and working long hours and trying to navigate priorities. Younger me would have laughed, said that’s not life. But it is life. Life hits you hard. It doesn’t matter if you’re ready for it or not; it still happens. But you grow into it.

I feel sadness when it slips into the sleepy parts of my life. It shows when I don’t pick up the pile of clothes on my floor or call back the person I love most. But I recognize it now, I see it, and I fight back.

But if you need to cry all night, then cry If you need to scream into the air, then scream If you cannot leave the house, stay in bed If you cannot use words, don’t speak You do not have to show your face to the world every single day. You are allowed a day off.

There is nothing poetic about believing you are a burden

Sometimes I wonder if fear is really the ghosts inside us of the things we should have said but didn’t

I remember thinking of you in colors bright and bold. I remember forgetting all the ideas of love I had ever been told.

There are many things you should care about Like sick animals, dying trees, and saving the bees. What others think of you is not one of these things.

The past does not define you. There will be people who once knew you intimately, but they don’t know you now. They may remember a chapter that once spoke to them, but they don’t get to know the chapters that are coming. You get to write those.

There is power in not being afraid to break.

Every once in a while, you need to be reminded that flowers wilt in the dark. If you close yourself off to beautiful things, your petals will cease to grow.

I see no crime in a well-earned nap The mind needs rest

There is no punch line in who you are. No joke that could ever be made at the expense of your life. If someone seeks to embarrass you, they are taking it too far.

We spend a lifetime with our feelings; try not to hurt those of others.

The ground feels solid, Because when we fall We hit the ground hard. But we forget that from the ground Life grows. When you fall, the hurt won’t last. You will grow again.

I remind myself what I live for: warm nights, clear skies, to be in the arms of the one I love.

Other people aren’t going to give you closure Despite how badly you want it to come from them The closure is always going to come from you

Soothe your racing thoughts by reminding yourself life has a funny way of working out

For the people who tell you that you can only write of the things you know—let them stay boring. Be magic.

thought about who we all are as people, how we come together in moments we need hope. I thought

about how we draw inspiration from each other, how we long to be in love with another.

It’s the start of the week, and I am dreaming of the weekend. It feels like so many hours in between, until I get to see you again. My mind is driving me wild with all these thoughts of us, sitting on the beach, beers at our feet, holding hands, and playing music from our phones. When the lights go out, I think about you and me, spending every weekend together for the rest of our lives.

There is a place I call home, and sometimes it feels like a quiet little corner of the world. It is where I live and breathe and scrawl my feelings on pages. It is where I cry and let down my walls on the days I’ve come up empty and all I do is fall.

You can completely shatter more than once in your life, and every time the pieces come together, you’ll look a little different, think a little different, and the way you carry yourself may change.