For The Ones Who Smile Through Their Loneliness

Have you ever been in water so deep that you start to question your swimming skills?

The years of practice and knowledge that your thigh muscles won’t give up if you don’t, just floats away.

You start to panic.

You’re working way harder to stay above water than you ever have before in your life. “This is what drowning feels like,” you think. But you keep fighting. You won’t let that water win. You can’t.

This is what if feels like to love too much. In this hatred filled world with people who cut you off on the highway, with boys who never text you back, with girls who laugh at you because you don’t look the same as her. In this ugly place where every where you turn people are belittle for being different, being walked on for “being too nice”, being left and forgotten about.

But you keep on swimming.

You keep loving that boy, and greeting that girl with the same sweet smile you keep giving people chance after chance to see the beauty in your differences, to teach them tolerance. You keep showing them reasons to stay and love you back.
You see, I’ve learned something about love.

In a world full of language barriers and things that some of us may never understand or figure out; love is universal. It is a cure-all. But it call also he the roots for the deepest sorrow, biggest hurt and soul crushing heart ache.

Love can be the one thing that brightens even the darkest of days. When a friend brings you a cup of your favorite coffee or a stranger holds the door for you at the gas station. The tide recedes a little bit and gives you breathing room. But then there are the nights that are a little too lonely, a little too dark. And the darkness is accompanied by the rising tide that washes away all the love you have ever felt

So, why? Why do you continue to greet each morning like the night never happened? Why do you keep wishing the clerk a good day before leaving? Why do you still show strangers the same amount of love you give your best friend? Why don’t you give up in the world and say, “forget it. You win.”

Because if you do, you drown.

The water gets its way. It fills your lungs and it suffocated you until you can’t breathe.

If you give in to the pain and loss and everything else that hatred throws your way, you die. Loves dies

It’s okay to question your loving skills. Just like you may question the strength of your legs from time to time. It’s okay to not know when or if your heart will give out, when your body will just give up.

The hate and the hurt of the world can get deep-hella deep. It’s okay to wonder. It’s okay to panic if you’re a person that loves too much, you’ll know the feeling. You start to question everything. “Is it even worth it?” “How long can I stand this?”

That may be the hardest question for you to answer.

But answer. I mean it. Answer that question, no matter how hard it may be.

Tell that water that your thighs won’t lose strength. You will not drown. Your lungs will remain clear and your heart will continue to beat. And continue to love.

You will continue to see the good in people. You will be persistent with your love, knowing someday someone will return it full force You will keep giving off light even into the darkest of places.

Because that’s what you do

That’s what we do.

We hold on. We keep swimming.

To make a brighter and lovelier future for us all.