Surprise Yourself

God has blessed me with so many amazing opportunities, and I would love to share them with anyone who will listen. (DISCLAIMER: This is my own blog, and in no way reflects the beliefs or values of the Peace Corps. Everything I write is of my own doing,...

[tylerknott]

The best memories live in the fuzzy periphery of our minds, the warm haze that wraps nostalgia in analog grit. We feel these places often, in sounds, in scents, in random bursts of light, and we ache for them. We ache.

[thelovejournals]

Miss someone until they come back, or until you come back, until their absence in your life becomes something to be avoided at all costs. Miss them until you don’t have to anymore, until you’re reunited in your favorite booth in your favorite restaurant ordering your favorite meal, miss them until it feels like you never left. Or miss them until you can’t anymore, until the things you miss are identified and cataloged as things and not a person, until you figure out that easy company and long talks and unblinking, all-knowing eye contact will find you again the way they found you the first time. Miss someone until you don’t.

Stephanie Georgopulus, How To Miss Someone (via wordsnquotes)

[afadthatlastsforever]

Home is not where you are from, it is where you belong. Some of us travel the whole world to find it. Others, find it in a person.

Beau Taplin • T h e   E x p l o r e r s (via afadthatlastsforever)

[pigmenting]

you know all those times someone when someone helped you or made you smile and you didn’t say anything? you’ve been that for other people. you’ve made someone smile. you’ve brightened someone’s day without realizing it. you do it all the time. you matter in ways you don’t even know.

[tylerknott]

Typewriter Series #1820 by Tyler Knott Gregson

*Pre-order my new book, Wildly Into The Dark, and I’ll donate $1 for every order to @TWLOHA !  bit.ly/WildlyIntoTheDark *

[afadthatlastsforever]

Goodbye,       that cruel, forsaken word, how smoothly       it forms in the mouth. how lightly       it falls off the tongue. how violently       it dismantles a heart.

Beau Taplin • G o o d b y e (via afadthatlastsforever)

[pigmenting]

you hit a period in your life sometime after your teenage years and you realize how much you’ve changed as a person since then. your views on the world have expanded, your self of self has become clearer and your relationships with the people around you have evolved into new things. not all of it is necessarily good change but change nonetheless. looking back you may be able to pinpoint a few times when you were aware of that change. some major life event that you knew you wouldn’t be the same afterwards. a handful of decisions that led you down new paths. mostly though, the change was gradual. incremental. unnoticeable. and it’s happening right now too. wherever you are in your journey, you are moving forward. evolving. all the tiny little decisions we make during the day change us over time. all the times we try sometime new. all the times we say hello to a stranger. all the times we care for ourselves. all the times we learn sometime new. in days, weeks, months, years, you won’t be the person you are reading this right now. so keep moving forward. evolve. become the best version of you you can find.

[afadthatlastsforever]

That is the power of people, I suppose  every other little thing in your life could be going perfectly to plan  but if you are missing somebody,  it’s hell.

Beau Taplin • H e l l  (via afadthatlastsforever)

[afadthatlastsforever]

There are no better times,    right places, or more suitable occasions    when it comes to the words, I love you. There is only now    and much too late.

Beau Taplin • M a y b e  L a t e r (via afadthatlastsforever)

[backshelfpoet]

Would you mind sharing something to help me get a little hope back? I need some in my life right now, if it doesn't bother you.

Today it snowed in my hometown and I woke up to children shouting in the streets, and when I walked to the park, a group of kids were taking turns sledding down the hill on a trashcan lid. All the snow blew in and covered up the mud and debris, and those kids were so happy, perched like tiny birds on the top of that hill, flying down on their shiny silver sled. 

I live with a girl named Leni, and on New Year’s Eve, she took me to a concert and she and her boyfriend tried to find me a midnight kiss because they didn’t want me to be alone, but instead of kissing someone, I stood on the pews at the edge of the room while the gospel of a countdown sounded, and I watched a hundred people kiss each other to the music of The Egotones, a local band dabbling in psychedelic tunes, and I felt no loss. This is so achingly new to me, to, for the first time, feel free standing in a crowded room, hosting a conversation only with myself. Afterwards, we went to Shari’s, and I ate half of Leni’s pancakes, and I watched her lay her head on her boyfriend’s broad, safe shoulder, and there was an undeniable tenderness between them that I saw but did not envy, because it was beautiful but it must be so hard to stay soft like that.

Leni went to the park with me today and tried sledding down a hill on a tin baking pan from our kitchen, but mostly she tripped and tumbled over herself, and in her wake, the pan left grease smears on the powdery snow. Leni is a very brave person, and she has a lot of light in her, and I like to think she left some smears of that in the snow as well, for the bird children to pick up and bring home with them after they’ve finished flying for the day. 

There is an undeniable tenderness in the world, in the way it rotates, and I do not envy it, because it must be so hard to stay soft like that. But, I swear, it is beautiful, and it shines like Leni and the bird children and the silver sled of the trashcan lid, which I picked up from its place in the snow, dented at the rim, and brought home.

This is to say, I wish you well; I hope you are filled with the most tender light.

-

d.a.s

[tylerknott]

Start each morning with good intentions, start with wishes of kindness and tenderness for all living beings. Start this way and release them to the winds like threads from the flags. They will fly and soar and land in places you cannot imagine. You, you, can change a life. Never forget this power. Never stop believing in it.

[afadthatlastsforever]

I think there must be no crueler torment to the human heart than to see the end coming, as clear as morning, but be powerless to prevent it.

Beau Taplin • I n c o m i n g (via afadthatlastsforever)

[afadthatlastsforever]

The next time you find yourself in a dark place I want you pick yourself up, step outside, look long and hard into the deep night sky and take comfort in the knowledge that the absence of light makes nothing in this universe any less astonishing or magic.

Beau Taplin • T h e  I n f i n i t e  A b y s s  (via afadthatlastsforever)

[quotemadness]

I don’t think you can ever fill the empty space with the thing you lost… I don’t think your missing pieces ever fit inside you again once they go missing.

John Green (via quotemadness)

[tylerknott]

Typewriter Series #1706 by Tyler Knott Gregson

[quoteswagga]

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.

Shel Silverstein (via quoteswagga)

[tylerknott]

Buddha once said “I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.” No matter what world we wake to tomorrow, we have work to do. We have compassion to spread, we have kindness to spread. We have friends to protect, we have families to support. We have understanding to practice, patience to build. We have life, so much life, and we have to shine bright lights on those whose lives and the importance of them, have taken a backseat for far too long. We have rights to fight for and so many people to love. So much light to chase. We cannot heal a wound, a split down our center, by ignoring it, nor by running away from it. Only though the work we must complete can we heal, only by giving our hearts and kindness to all those that need it most, only by loving, openly, wildly, freely, can we progress. We will sleep tonight and wake to a new country, but at our centers, we are all the same and we must not forget this. We cannot abandon hope when the lights dim low, we cannot sacrifice our tenderness when grace goes unanswered. Love. More. . #election2016