| decadence |

|Just trudging along.|

[reignofthesoul]

Whatever comes, let it come, what stays let stay, what goes let go.

Papaji (via tobiji)

[sottla]

You tried to change didn’t you? closed your mouth more tried to be softer prettier less volatile, less awake but even when sleeping you could feel him travelling away from you in his dreams so what did you want to do love split his head open? you can’t make homes out of human beings someone should have already told you that and if he wants to leave then let him leave you are terrifying and strange and beautiful something not everyone knows how to love.

Warsan Shire, “For Women Who Are Difficult to Love,” (via christinefriar)

[lifeinpoetry]

Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women; kitchen of lust, / bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. / Sometimes, the men – they come with keys, / and sometimes, the men – they come with hammers.

Warsan Shire, from “The House,” Her Blue Body (via lifeinpoetry)

[meredithbklyn]

This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find … themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. … they mean to develop intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated. Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? … Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?” Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.

Relevant magazine  (via laurenarlene)

At 28, this is so accurate.

(via my-quarterlifecrisis)

[jamienojaem]

When we choose growth over perfection, we immediately increase our shame resilience. Improvement is a far more realistic goal than perfection. Merely letting go of unattainable goals makes us less susceptible to shame. When we believe “we must be this” we ignore who or what we actually are, our capacity and our limitations. We start from the image of perfection, and of course, from perfection there is nowhere to go but down.

Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough” (via indianananna)

[missedbliss]

I'm somewhat super stressed about bills and how I'm going to be so poor that I just keep on shopping and spending more money. Pretty sure it's not helping my situation.

[missedbliss]

"Do you get scared?" "Scared of what?" "....I don't know..." "I get scared..." "Scared of what? That something is gonna happen?" "....I don't know. Yea, I guess" "Don't worry because I'm not going anywhere."

[elisabethhewer]

In one timeline we kiss but the stars don’t come down. In another you set a world on fire for me but I perish in the flames. Another and we’re strangers on a busy street, brushing by close enough to send each other reeling off balance but not stopping. Somewhere there’s a final space where your hand on my face is the punchy climax to an epic saga, where the way our mouths meet takes the breath right out of people’s throats. One universe has us right, of all the millions stacked on millions. So it’s not this one. I can live with that. The world is full of wonders and a hundred years ago the moon was too much to dream of touching. Look how far we’ve come. Turn over your shoulder and just look. Maybe we’ll come across each other at the turning of the century, racing across the breaches between worlds. I’ll build my life on that maybe.

elisabeth hewer

  (via luscifers)

[meanwhilepoetry]

Growth is simply learning how to suffer gracefully, elegantly and not letting your pain completely tear you apart.

Nikita Gill, Truth about Growth  (via thatkindofwoman)

[youdothemath]

How ya know fa’ sho

You think back to why certain things didn’t work out. You think about why you had to let certain people go.

You remember the one you were closest to. His father tells him not to get married until after he’s forty, and you tell him, “we’re young, but we’re not that young. And we’re not that dumb.”

You remember the one where you went skiing with him and his mother. You felt like a doofus, and she told you that if you didn’t cheer up, she’d smack you.

The one who had an unsettling, animalistic protectiveness over you. 

The one who was suspicious of your friends. 

The one who thought it was strange and desperate when your sister started online dating at age 27. Your sister, who’s now happy and engaged to the love of her life. 

The one who your parents thought was rude. 

The one who was a little too feminine for your taste, and you couldn’t get it out of your head. 

The one who blacked out and drunkenly humiliated you in front of everyone you love. 

You remember the one who was perfectly nice. The one with a good job and a goofy sense of humor. The one who understood you completely, who you just weren’t in love with.

And then you remember that tweet from Lena Dunham where she says something about needing a ‘99′ emoji, because she’s never really 100% sure about anything. 

You don’t know how you know. All you know is how you knew it was not. 

[lissieamy-deactivated20170705]

You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm

Credit to @someoneloved (since I can’t reply and all) 👌🏻 (via lissieamy)

This. Which also reminds me of “failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” Words I literally think of daily and that immediately calm me down.

(via redcatinsanfrancisco)

[hellsatmyfeet]

Can you give me some advice? I can't figure out if this guy likes me as much as I like him. When we hang our we have so much fun but then he won't respond to my texts or make plans for a while, becaus his job is busy and he has a lot of things to do.... So then I feel like I'm not sure how into me he might actually be. I don't know what to do?

(There was a follow up message that said: “Oh I am sorry, to clarify, I am a 26 year old woman currently in graduate school, if that is helpful to you. Would really appreciate any insight, since you seem very grounded and I respect your opinions.”)

OK, So:

When my father was gravely injured in Vietnam and was shipped to Germany to recover, my mother went to see him. She didn’t speak German and had no idea what she was doing and was afraid. This is my mom that is extremely bright, but also very shy and has trouble trying new things. But there was no email, and fuck college and fuck everyone telling her not to go, she went. For his part, my dad had written letters that were gleeful while going 4 days without sleep, while jungle rot ate his skin off and bullets flew past his 19 year old head in the jungle. He just wanted to keep her happy so she would never leave him. THAT’S HOW IT’S DONE. 

When I was dating my previous bf, he lived 3.5 hours away and worked an exhausting and physically demanding construction job. I told him that I didn’t think a long distance relationship would make sense, given that. Instead, he drove to NYC several times per week after work and would wake up at 3 or 4 am to drive back to work (I wasn’t a jerk, I also took the train there A LOT). Sure, we broke up many years later, but he loved me a lot and I loved him a lot. That’s how you do it when you mean it. 

when I met J, he had broken his foot, but was afraid I would think he was being flaky if he canceled on our first official date. So he walked for an entire night around Brooklyn on a broken foot without saying a peep.The next day he texted me that he had to get a “quick x-ray”. Then “oops foot broken”. Would I have understood? Obviously I would have, I am a bitch but not a menace to people’s personal health. But he was invested and he wanted to send a clear message that he was. 

My sister has been married four times. She knows things. When she met her current husband through online dating, she decided to be less people-pleasing and more honest about what she wanted and needed. she was nervous to meet but needed a lot of reassurance in the meantime. he spent three months constantly communicating with her (several times a day), although we found out a year later he is a technophobe and hates the phone and computers. Did he like it? No. He hated it. But he liked her a hell of a lot more than he hated the computer and phone. Bruh sucked it up. Now she is married to a very awesome skater dude who loves her kids and makes her ice cream cakes. 

My last favorite story is of the neurosurgeon I interned with. He was desperately into a woman he had met at a conference, and they had been sending a flurry of texts back and forth for several days. He sent a text asking her to see him when he would be in her city the next week, and confessed that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Then he was called into emergency surgery. The thing about brain surgery is: it can last up to 24 hours. It is intense and exhausting and you cannot stop to grab your (then) blackberry and text. SO HE PAID ONE OF THE MAINTENANCE STAFF buddies he had made $25 per hour to stand there in the observance room with the phone, waiting for her to respond, so that he would not seem disinterested by not answering for many hours. When she finally texted back that she would love to meet up, everyone cheered as he dictated the text back saying “my main man is texting this for me, I am in surgery but didn’t want to wait”. Imagine getting that text? The brain got fixed and the woman was not left hanging, because he did not want to miss his chance. That’s how someone should feel about you, they don’t want to miss any chance they could have with you. If they’re not excited like that, what are they then?

my point is: No one that really likes you is too busy to see you or talk to you. In relationships, you can toy around, it’s fine. You don’t have to be dead serious into one another. But if that is what you want, and you have made it clear, my only advice specifically about straight men is: they are either in, or they are fucking out. Get in the damn car, or wait for the bus buddy. Those are the two possibilities. Either they are going to walk on a broken foot and fly to Germany, or they are “busy” doing god only knows, but it certainly shouldn’t be as exciting or as important as you. 

If you haven’t made yourself clear, why not? Sure it is scary, but telling someone what you need erases a lot of guesswork, wondering and time wasting.

And if you feel that you deserve to be a back burner item, and that someone else’s everyday busy-ness could trump you, I suggest you start listening to more Nicki Minaj, meditating, drawing, writing out your thoughts, and getting to know yourself more… and talking to these dudes less for a while. It worked for me and it taught me important lessons about what I need to live and be happy. 

Am I grounded? I am totally not. I am really pretty out of control most of the time. But I do not fuck around with relationships or tolerate wishy washy people giving me only half of what I need. So I guess in that respect, I am grounded because I will grind them into coffee and serve it to my friends, yes. XOXO I hope things work out for you soon XOXO 

[pretendingtoadult-deactivated20]

This is perfect.

[buzzfeed]

[thefrenemy-blog]

You Don’t Have To

-feel beautiful in only t-shirts and no makeup and a top bun

-act confident all the time

-respond to catcalls with a ‘fuck you’ and a middle finger when you’re actually quite scared

-feel great about your body at the moment

-forgive

-pretend not to be jealous

-get over your ex as fast as people tell you to

-love your job

-know where you’re going

-wear lipstick

-have perfect eyebrows

-100% know or define or explain your sexuality

-be a feminist and immediately become the perfect example of a feminist (because you are still learning, and you are the kind of person who will learn from your mistakes)

-stay quiet

-always be loud

-talk about it

-explain why you said ‘no’

-explain yourself

-do something that isn’t required of you when you just can’t or don’t want to

-keep people in your life that don’t need to be there

-be tough&perfect&strong all the time

-do anything but try, fail, succeed, live, learn, be a little better, repeat

You Don’t Have To Like Me

[thegirlwhocrieswolf]

New piece, hope you like it! xo Lang 

…………….

My NEW book Memories is now available via Amazon, BN.com + The Book Depository and bookstores worldwide. ♡♡♡ Remember to tag your book selfies with #langleav so I can check them out! ♡♡♡

[breanna-lynn]

Someday someone won’t be afraid of how much you love. They won’t stay on the shore; they’ll meet you in the depths.

you weren’t made for shallow waters, your heart is an ocean (via northernmade)

[inkskinned]

1. When he starts distancing himself from you, do not restring bridges with your own sinew. You will find yourself two months later coming unraveled, coming undone. You will find he has left you in the places he has visited and in the hair of the girls he has imagined kissing. You will find yourself splatterpainted on the walls where while drunk he confessed all of your secrets to his college friends. You will be crying on the floor, surrounded by the parts of you he has stepped on, and he will look you in the eyes and ask you to clean up the mess. 2. When she cannot get through the words “I love you” without her eyes flicking to the side or her tongue slurring or her mouth pressing in at the edges: do not assume it is your fault. Do not think that you have yet again pushed away someone amazing. You have not. Sometimes people knock on their bones and find themselves hollow. You were the only way they felt momentarily whole, do not empty yourself to fill up their soul. Do not shatter into pieces trying to perfect yourself. You do not need to be glass to turn light into rainbows. You are a person, not their prism. 3. Do not let them hold you against their body if you know they do not cherish every second they are in contact with your skin. I know it feels as if you are breaking your own spine, but tear yourself away from them. Know that the something beautiful you had was already fading. Know that in the end you did the only thing you could. Sometimes people grow apart. Even trees do it. 4. Cry. Want them back. 5. Cry. Do not take them back. 6. In the following months, you will rediscover what it means to be alone. You will sit and stare at a ceiling and hate yourself and hate the world and cry about everything because everything hurts. You will wonder if it could have gotten better if you’d just been a little different, if the timing had worked out, if if if. Do not worry about this. Nothing would have changed the reality that the person you were in love with had stopped loving you somewhere along the line, whether it was in the middle of a conversation or while driving under a bridge or when they made eye contact with someone new and wonderful. It doesn’t matter. Stop wasting your time on them. You don’t need to stop your story just because they are no longer a main character. Do not take back what has already poisoned you. Instead start healing and start healing soon. 7. Take yourself back. Bring out the mop, the broom, the magic wand. Glue where needs to be glued, put up new paint, turn off the lights in places that are too hot to touch. Touch your toes. Touch your hair. Touch a dog. Touch the grass, touch the telephone, do not call him. Touch base with your mom. Touch another person with no love in your heart, touch another person and mean every second of it. Believe in yourself even if you don’t believe in love. It’s okay. There is nothing wrong with being alone. You are the best company you’ll ever know. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay and none of this was ever your fault. Sometimes people just fall out of love. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’ll one day discover you didn’t need them anyway.

“How to stop loving someone who does not love you.” /// r.i.d (via inkskinned)

I’m crying so hard because I’ve never needed to read something as badly as I needed to read this.

(via astonishingly)

Damn

(via lindeliz)

This probably means a lot in the aftermath of a break up. But God, it is as refreshing as a summertime lemonade when you’ve read it at the height of being okay.

(via caragh)