tatumjanegray-blog

[tatumjanegray-blog]

you don’t just wake up one day and think ‘wow, i’m happy now.” happiness doesn’t come in a shiny glass bottle, but it may show up in the midst of a conversation or follow you along on an early morning drive. you might not notice it’s there at first -- feeling one way for so long becomes a habit, so when positivity flows in it’s not always obvious. 

but you’ll feel it. maybe not when you expect, but eventually it will come. you’ll stop in your tracks while walking home, or laugh too hard at a dumb joke on t.v, and you’ll feel it. the happiness that has desperately been trying to shine through -- it will, i promise. maybe not today, but someday. 

be there for that day.

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maybe it will be, maybe it won’t. life’s too short to wonder about the outcomes of things — at the end of the day, what is meant to be will be. things will change, people will come and go, hearts will build themselves up just to be broken, and yet the world will continue to dance around the sun.

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i love the long drive home that passes by the farm with the big grassy field. i love holding warm drinks and then holding my hands up to my cheeks. i love meeting people that have vibrant energy. i love when the ocean is quiet and the summertime when crickets sing outside my window. i love the dorky run my dog does when she sees my car pull into the driveway. i love feeling like life is alright, despite all the faults and worries it’s put me through. i love so many things

where does all the love go?

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My mum captured this and she told me it was even prettier in real.

(unedited and all, there’s no need to delete the caption)

[tatumjanegray-blog]

it’s hard to forgive the past. you want to blame something, someone... anything for the things that went wrong. you want to forget all the times you acted wrong or embarrassed yourself. you want to take things back, and do things over, and say things twice... but you can’t. it’s the past, and it will remain the past. you can’t go back to freshman year and ask yourself to stop waking up so early to put on makeup because of your insecurities. you can’t tell yourself at 15 that no, everyone does not hate you, it’s anxiety and it will pass. you can’t comfort yourself at 16 with a broken heart and tell yourself that self love is the love you really need. you can’t. instead, all you can do is look at the past, reminisce, and grow. you can take all the mistakes and sadness and grow. you can forgive the past, and you can forgive yourself.

[tatumjanegray-blog]

Switzerland by Marco Schnyder

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you don’t need to know who you are. i know life throws a million things a minute at you, demanding a future, demanding money, success, happiness. it tells you that you can’t lose yourself. you need a plan.

i disagree. i find comfort in not having a “self” to rely on. really, what’s to find? if finding yourself means sticking to the same realities and calling it life, i refuse. my reality is to be lost. never static, always changing. because i’d rather change my major, fall in love eight times, move all over the world just to come back home and lose myself every day than live in a world where i have to fit a certain mold.

stay lost. you have nothing but time to figure out what life means.

[tatumjanegray-blog]

i drove on the highway tonight

it was rainy

kind of like the nights we used to have

for a second i felt like i was that girl again

the one in the passenger seat

singing to every john mayer song

laughing at billboards

wishing midnight would never come

so i wouldn’t have to go home

it was peaceful

until i realized i wasn’t her anymore

and you weren’t there

i snapped back into reality

as i always do

but it still felt wrong

driving alone

[tatumjanegray-blog]

the pain isn’t losing someone. that hurts, but what hurts more is the aftermath. learning to live by yourself again. not knowing you can say good morning to your best friend. knowing you can’t control someone else, so you have to just focus on yourself. that hurts. knowing life is beautiful alone, but also remembering how beautiful it was in the passenger seat of their car. knowing every bad day wasn’t so bad if you could hear their voice. the pain isn’t the day they say goodbye, it’s everything afterwards. it’s knowing they’ll probably never come back again, but life will go on.

that hurts more than goodbye.

[tatumjanegray-blog]

you sent me a song long ago

i thought after things ended i couldn’t listen to it again

but tonight i forced myself to

thinking back to the first time i felt

sitting on the kitchen floor

holding the phone to my ear so i could hear your voice

this time was different

i cried because it wasn’t you singing anymore

or maybe it was

but you weren’t singing to me

it didn’t sound the same

it didn’t sound like you

maybe this is moving on

[tatumjanegray-blog]

Federico García Lorca, tr. by Sarah Arvio, from Selections; “Song of November and April,”

[tatumjanegray-blog]

rip down the wallpaper

the one covered with words you were once told

tear off each “i love you” and “this is forever”

because i swear they aren’t true

claw away every piece that caused you to feel less than loved and more of a burden

until your hands bleed with all the promises they never kept

[tatumjanegray-blog]

wish i could turn my love for you into hate but my heart doesn’t work that way

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x

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[tatumjanegray-blog]

via weheartit, originally by @peteski on instagram