This Is Your Story—Own It

This is your story. No one can write it for you. No one can tell you where to turn the page, to begin the chapter, to write the pauses, the line breaks, the annotations. No one can tell you where to truly begin, where to unfold, where to reveal the character motives, or change the plot. No one can tell you how to be, to act, to feel. No one can stand in judgment of the decisions you make, or the lips you kiss, or the lives you touch, or the dreams you create and follow.

This is your story. You are allowed to make mistakes, to erase pieces and rewrite them, to fall down and fail and start completely over with a page turn. You are allowed to love the wrong people and learn painful lessons. You are allowed to decide which faith you want to have, or none at all. You are allowed to kiss, to smile, to laugh, to forgive, to hope.

This is your story. You are allowed to raise your voice. To speak your mind. To share the truths within you. You are allowed to believe whatever way you want and stand behind those opinions proudly. You are allowed to fight back against what you don’t think is fair, or tell people how you feel without fear.

This is your story. It doesn’t look like the person’s next to you. It might be more vibrant at times, more painful, more clear, more chaotic. But no matter how it unfolds, or changes, or twists, it is not any less beautiful.

This is your story. It won’t be identical to anyone else’s. You may have a desire to shape it to follow a certain path, or to be similar to one’s you’ve seen. But life is too short for constant comparison. And you’ll be empty if you spend your chapters chasing someone else’s plot line instead of your own.

This is your story. You’ll have days where nothing feels right. Where you think you’ve been abandoned. When you wonder how it’ll end, or where the point is where everything begins to change.

You’ll fall in love and think you’ve found your hero(ine). You’ll lose love, lose hope, lose yourself. And then realize you were the true warrior all along.

This is your story. You’ll slip in and out of love. You’ll scrape your knees. You’ll watch people you love spiral down, or fade, or head to Heaven. You’ll have dreams that don’t come to fruition, plans that don’t work out. You’ll have moments where everything falls so beautifully into place you can’t help but cry. You’ll have days where you wish you could just press ‘pause’ and stay right there.

This is your story. You’ll want a different one sometimes. But then you’ll realize how wonderfully messy your chapters have been, how much you’ve grown, how damn amazing it is to have a tale that’s simply, purely yours..

This is your story. It won’t always be easy or spotless. It won’t always be the prettiest book on the shelf, but you’ll learn to love the words, the worn pages, the shredded binding. You’ll learn to claim its imperfection and still call it beautiful. Because it’s your own.