A Gentle Reminder

by Bianca Sparacino

One day, you will be met where you are.

check on your kind friends.

if you are going to find the person who is going to help you experience the kind of love you have always deserved — you have to make sure that you are ready for it.

you have to believe in the version of you that is laughing in bed on a Sunday morning with the person they love twenty years from now, because you deserve that future. It is waiting for you. Choose it.

You are in no rush to figure out your own soul. It’s never too late to start over, it’s never too late to change your mind, it’s never too late to redirect yourself, to replace the dreams you thought you wanted for the ones that genuinely excite and challenge you.

Leap towards all that scares and ignites you. Just try for something while you’re here.

If it is for you, trust that it will find you.

Maybe this is the season you are being challenged

you can be your own home no matter what comes your way.

Maybe this is the season you are being challenged to make amends with your heart,

to forgive yourself for giving it away to those who could not value it;

maybe right now you are being called to protect it, to find your way back into your tenderness, to find your way back into your soul.

Maybe this is the season you are being challenged to remind yourself of the beauty life has to offer you.

Maybe right now your journey is about you.

Here, you are rebuilding. Here, you are adapting, and mending, and reclaiming all of the pieces you let them walk away with.

giving yourself the same kind of love you have always given to others.

do not look for the same kind of love you have experienced;

Do not compare it or doubt it when it arrives, because it will be different. It will always be different. It will hold you differently, and it will say your name differently, and it will laugh differently, and hope differently, and you will make different memories within it; you will feel it in your bones in a way that you won’t be able to express, in a way that will feel new and somewhat scary, but right.

Do not seek familiarity, do not keep searching for your past in your future. Trust what comes. No one will ever fully be able to understand the internal battles you had to endure just to heal, just to grow, just to make it here today.

If something ignites you — chase it.

Chase it — because you can, because you deserve to experience what is profound and remarkable in this world,

because you are worthy of the things that make your chest tighten with happiness and wonder.

Chase it, because you never know what is waiting for you on the other...

I hope you have the courage to believe that genuine connection still exists.

open yourself to it when you start to feel it bloom within the heart of you.

I hope you have the courage to fight for connection. I hope you have the courage to go deeper. To never exist on the surface of your life, even if it’s easier or more convenient.

I hope you have the courage to nurture your pain, to not disregard it or sweep it under the rug of distraction or convenience. I hope you have the courage to heal yourself, even when it hurts.

I hope you have the courage to let love and opportunity move through you like rain.

I hope you have the courage to see the way in which you loved and tried and fought for something as a testament to just how deeply your capacity to feel

I hope you have the courage to walk away with grace.

I hope you have the courage to trust the part of yourself that knows there’s more out there for you,

I hope you have the courage to go after whatever it is that genuinely makes you want to get up in the morning.

I hope you have the courage to trust in the person you’re becoming.

The kindest people do not just exist — they choose to soften where circumstance has tried to harden them,

You are not afraid of being without it, because you know that you will always have yourself.

you will find a love that is real.

you will find a love that sees you.

you will find a love that connects.

This love, it will know you.

you will find a love that is light, that isn’t heavy to carry, that does not weigh down the core of you.

you will find a love that reminds you just how worthy you always were.

Make your mind a beautiful place to be.

One day, when you least expect it, you are going to crash into someone who is going to be so soft and gentle with your heart, and you are going to be so glad you kept it open. You are going to be so glad that you continued to fight for it — that you chose to believe it deserved more.

You were never asking for too much. You were simply just asking the wrong person.

be the person who changes.

use this transformation as a reminder that you are actually falling into yourself.

Forgive yourself for giving your heart to those who could not love it or value it. Forgive yourself for falling for the wrong people.

Maybe you stayed longer than you knew you should. Maybe you wish you would have seen the signs earlier, that you could have walked away before the damage was done, before the lesson was learned in a really hard and haunted way.

when you believe in love and the beauty of another human being so deeply — sometimes, you can convince yourself to fight wars for someone who isn’t fighting for you,

Now you know what you do not want. Now you know what you do not want to feel. Now you know the kinds of things you crave, the respect you deserve, and you won’t settle for the opposite any longer. Forgive yourself for how you got to that understanding.