The Way Back Home

by Courtney Peppernell

For all the people who walk into your life, there will be an important few who fill your heart with memories and your mind with a world of possibilities. These are the ones to hold on to, the ones to show how much you care. So, with these few, give them your time. For time is the only thing that cannot be returned. It is the most precious part of you. When you give someone your time, you are saying, here are all the minutes I will never see again, and they will always be linked with you.

For some people, having confidence comes naturally. They do not know what it is like to be without it. But for others, they’ve never known what it means to have even a drop of it. I will tell you what it is like, to second-guess everything that you do—it’s a racing pulse and a mind that never seems to switch off. It’s checking something over and over again and asking for someone else’s assurance even though you know you are good at what you do. It’s hearing so many good things about you, yet all it takes is one slither of negativity and you bring yourself undone. It’s never knowing how to respond to praise without wondering if the person even meant it. It’s still waters, wanting to let a current take you forward over moss-stained rocks and out into the wonder of the ocean but having an eternal fear that the ocean will spit you back out. That you are unwelcome. So, for every time you are given the chance to instill even a drop of confidence in another, do it. There is nothing more beautiful than watching someone build themselves piece by piece, embrace the current of their life, rush to the ocean, and find their freedom.

You will realize it one day. If you blink, you may even miss it. But you will come to understand that the joy of life does not exist in the things we think it does. It does not matter how many possessions we own or how impressive we seem on paper. It does not matter all the hours we devote to becoming better than someone else or all the ways we try to seem more important than another. Because, in the end, we all leave the world for someplace neither you nor I really know. But we leave. And in our wake, it is often not the things we amassed we wish to be remembered for. Instead, it’s how often we held out our hand for someone else, it’s how many times we thought of putting someone else’s needs above our own, it’s how many moments we spent giving instead of taking. The joy of life exists in all the ways we support each other.

We grieve things in this world, some more than others. We grieve when a cloudy sky covers the stars we have longed to see. We grieve alone on the bathroom floor, having lost an opportunity that meant everything and more. We grieve a love that changed us the moment it ended. We grieve the things that change us and the memories that break us. We grieve people we’ve never met and the moments we were never given. But there is a grief that makes me ache in a way I cannot always explain, and that is the grief of watching someone who deserves every beautiful thing in this world but who does not have the strength to see it themselves.

Splitting at the seams and opening your heart does not feel good. Unraveling and taking down walls takes work. It isn’t comfortable to say, “Here I am. What do you think?” But we will always be fighting this battle. We will always be splitting, unraveling, and then trying to put ourselves back together again. The kindest thing you can do is to award yourself grace in these moments. And on the days the grace feels farther and farther away, know that I fight these battles alongside you; we are fighting together.

It matters how you treat someone, the way you show grace to their dreams, how you hold hope for their passion, how you encourage them to believe. It matters that you are the friend who supports their dreams.

So many times, you have called in tears, heart shattered against the wall. Promising me you will find silver linings within this fall. Assuring me another broken heart doesn’t mean you are not fine. But I can hear the defeat just by the sound of your voice on the other line. So empty, so hollow. And it is the one thing I wish you could see clearly, that even when sometimes in life we hit rock bottom, this doesn’t mean that you are something to be forgotten. That you are not worthy of the love you so want to share with someone. But, beautiful girl, you keep choosing the wrong heart. More often the needs of the others you put before your own. The most graceful thing you can do is patch up your broken heart’s home.

We measure so many things— the speed of light, the distance from one house to the next, the inches we are in height. But often we forget to measure how many I love yous we say before time quickly passes us by or how many people we share honest conversations with, knowing we all exist under the same sky. We measure how far we’ve come by how many more miles we can run. We measure how much we’ve grown by a mark on the wall with our name. But how far we’ve come should be measured in what we choose to do with all our time, and how much we’ve grown should be decided by always choosing kindness, and not merely sometimes. For greatness is not measured in all the things you can do but by the grace that you show to all those in need of you.

“Don’t you see?” she said. “If you light your life with kindness, you will always be able to see your way home.”

The longer you shoulder the weight of the world on your shoulders, the more exhausted you become, and the less strength you have. The truth of what it means to carry on lies in the way we let go of the things we cannot control.

For all the apologies you have given for things that didn’t need an apology, for all the nights you have looked in the mirror and struggled with your body, for all the moments you have broken and cried with your whole aching heart, for all the reasons you believe you don’t deserve another day and chance to start— know that I have been looking for you, hoping you are loved, wanting you to thrive, for when you are believed in, you fly, and when you are loved, you survive.

Perhaps if we saw life for what it really was, there would be less time filled with dread and more time to breathe and pause, for the truth of life is quite simply said— even on the days when we are met with struggle and unable to predict the moments ahead, for all the times we fall, crash, and fumble, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

We were made to let our stories go into the world, no matter how dark or precarious they may be. The only wrong story is the one never told.

You have spent all these years trying to place the pieces of yourself into the wrong puzzle. But so have I— It is perhaps the greatest mystery of our lives: the puzzle we want is not composed of the pieces we are given. So, we are left unsure of the things we desire, the person we want to be, the dreams we seek. Who am I, where will I go, what will I become? But we have lost sight of the bigger picture and what the puzzle really means. For this reason, I have been trying to think of every little piece with gratitude rather than as things that will distract me from what I want in life. And when you have gratitude, life doesn’t become so much of a puzzle anymore— Because the bigger picture is right in front of you. Your pieces have always fit together exactly as the universe had intended.

You are more than likes and comments and views on a story. It is easy to become trapped inside such a void. And in your frailer moments, you wonder, how did this happen, that my entire sense of worth is dependent on people I have never even met? When did my purpose become so intertwined with strangers on the internet? And this is my note to you: the world inside your heart is far greater and more beautiful than a comment or a like cares to know. And if you stopped but for a moment to realize life goes on with or without the next post, you might remember you still have purpose despite the things that haunt you the most.

Do you see me here pressed against this wall, legs shaking, eyes wandering? Do you know of my existence or my name at all? Will you listen to me here for all the things I have to say and all the purpose that I seek of my ambitions every day, all the doubt I have every week? Is there anybody out there who will stop and notice this lonely flower on the wall hoping to grow a garden instead of feeling so small?

It is always a war between the mind and body— I wish that I could take all your insecurities and all the reasons you don’t think you are beautiful and press them between the pages of a book, like flowers, so they will become art to you instead of such darkness. Your mind was made for strength and your body made for love.

If I could write you a note with all the things I know to be true, this is what the note would say and how I would reassure you— “Life is only an anchor if you don’t remind yourself to breathe, and sometimes there are no answers for why people leave. But you are worthy of more things than you ever dream to believe, and there is more hope in life than you let yourself think, even on the days that feel like they were made to sink. It can be difficult, knowing when to speak and when to ask for help, but your story is not a story that deserves to be left on the shelf. More important than all the things you fear is where you place your faith; just know you will always belong here and your story is not one that can be erased.”

I hope that when you count down toward midnight to welcome in a new year, you stop for a moment and remember all the things you hold dear. For life is not always about making lists of resolutions and all the things you wish to do; instead, it’s about finding gratitude in all the reasons you are, are you. So, when you start every new year and raise a glass with glee, have faith in this very simple truth: you are right where you are always meant to be.

She had learned how to cry quietly, under covers or in the shower, where no one would notice and no one would ask questions. And if anyone asked, she would always respond that it was nothing. But, of course, it wasn’t nothing. She was an ocean, always arriving on the shore but never being able to stay, always being pulled back to the depths of darkness. Every loss is met with a gain, every grief met with happiness, every fear met with understanding. Yet it was the loss, the grief, and the fear that she focused on; unreasonable, she knew, but she could not control the darkness, no matter how much light she was given. This is the thing of such darkness; it will convince you to lose hope in yourself—and you will, time and time again. But no matter how many times the ocean arrives on the shore and then leaves, know that I will remain, waiting in moonlight for you to arrive again—I have faith in you.

We meet some people and we only cross paths so they may teach us how to be better. They remind us of all the beautiful things that exist inside us; they prove we were not a mistake. And even long after they are gone, we are still left with a greater understanding. That sometimes the universe gives us people disguised as hope.