Mahal Kita.

"The primadonna life, the rise and fall."

-Marina

Just let life be what it is and stop hoping for people to be anyone but themselves because the only thing you can change is how you react to things. Stop reacting in ways that create problems and you're golden. Stop letting yourself down by telling yourself you're letting yourself down because you are who you are and you should never be ashamed of that. Stop expecting everyone to care for you when you fall down and just pick your own self back up because that is the only way to get stronger. Stop keeping yourself from trusting others because no lesson in the long run is not worth learning. For heavens sake, just let yourself love yourself. It's okay to call yourself beautiful. Eat healthy because it makes you feel good, not because you think you need to change. 

Stop letting yourself forget things that made you who you are today. If it's too painful now, put the memories in a filing cabinet in your brain, but don't throw it all away because these memories are the important ones. 

It's only okay to judge if you find double the amount of positive as you do negative. It's only okay to compare if you remember all that you have to offer, too. Don't beat yourself up for the way you were born, whether it be gay or too tall or thin haired or with a round face or however else you see yourself because the way you were made was not a mistake. 

Let yourself go crazy sometimes. Let yourself play like a little kid and find the times where it is actually okay to sing in public. Compliment strangers because you know how it feels when a stranger compliments you. 

If you want to travel, why are you buying fast food every day instead of saving? If you want to change the world, why are you not starting with the kid who needs help down the street? Just because not everything is on a grand scale doesn't mean it doesn't mean something grand in someone else's life. 

It's okay to cry but it's also okay to be okay, and it's okay if you're still in love with someone as long as you remember that if it isn't supposed to be, it won't be. It's okay if you forget how much someone means to you only if you let yourself remember someday. It's okay to let someone mean something to you.

Be strong but be vulnerable and happy and ready and confident,

have confidence in the fact that you are more than enough,
have confidence in the fact that your presence is cherished even if you don't know it.

The problem sometimes is the someone that you feel something for, and sometimes they know of it and sometimes they know of only half of it and sometimes they know nothing of it, and maybe you think you're the only one feeling anything at all, and I can relate to that especially currently, and maybe they're feeling something for someone else too, and maybe the something they're feeling is the exact something you're feeling for them except the way you feel has grown stagnant and maybe you told yourself it has to stop,

but the problem is you can't turn off feelings, folks, you just can't. So don't beat yourself up about it and even when you are crying from the frustration of feeling something for someone who feels something else, remember that nothing in life lasts, and these are the vivid emotions that let us be alive, and life is a beautifully, ironically, lengthy, short experience that passes so fast once you get through all the long moments and you cannot end up feeling like it was wasted, what kind of a masterpiece has no color in it?

So when the color is being whipped onto the page, if it's streaked across your vision, if the page is stinging, just remember that the paint will dry, remember that there are buckets of other colors at your disposal, and all you have to do is find a new brush.

love always, laura elizabeth.