1. You are your own home.
I know the night seems unbearable and scary and empty, but it is always better to be alone than to be with someone who makes you feel lonely. You do not belong in his arms. He is not your home.
Your home is late night drives with the radio humming softly in the background. Your home is warm blankets and giant tubs of ice cream with your favorite people. Your home is your childhood best friend's voice on the other end of a phone call. Your home is not him. You are your own home.
2. "How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you."
Every time you go over to their place. Every time you kiss them at a party. Every time you take them back. You are telling them that all the times they ignored your texts or blatantly disregarded you in favor of someone else’s presence is forgotten. You are teaching them that it is okay to treat you terribly because you will always come back to them. We accept the love we think we deserve. So tell yourself that you deserve better. That you deserve everything. Because you do.
3. Don’t believe your own lies. You will break your own heart.
It is okay to hope and want and dream, but it is not okay to romanticize him. The look he gives you when he’s breathing out a cloud of nicotine, or the way he kisses your neck when he's six drinks in, or the soft sentiments he murmurs when you are in his bed are not signs that he is falling in love with you, they are signs that you are giving him exactly what he wants for the night. That feeling in your stomach that screams, “this is not love” — listen to it. Trust it. It's not deceiving you. He is.
4. His treatment of you is not an indicator of your worth.
If his words have ever made tears cloud your vision or made your heart sink to your stomach. If his words have ever made you feel like trash. Used. Tainted. Expendable. Worthless. Do not believe them. He does not know about how you held your family member’s hand when they were in the hospital, or why you love your favorite book so much, or how you let your best friend cry on your shoulder when the boy she loved broke her heart. He does not know you. The way he treats you is a reflection of his character, not yours.
5. You cannot make someone love you in a way they are not ready for.
You cannot force someone to want marathons of old TV shows and midnight adventures to the grocery store and authentic, vulnerable conversations on abandoned beaches if all they are looking for at the moment is casual sex at 3 a.m. and a good story to tell their friends. If they are at a point in their lives where they're blacking every weekend and looking to have uncomplicated fun, you cannot make them fast-forward through time to meet you where you are. You cannot force someone to be in the same stage of life as you.
6. There is more to life than him.
There are city skylines that will take your breath away. There are midnight breakfast runs with your best friends. There are moments that will make you feel more alive than you have ever been. There are moments when you will fall in love with yourself, and your life, and fall in love, truly in love. He is not the only source of beauty and joy and healing you will have in your life, I promise.
7. You have so much to offer, and the right person will see that.
You are more than any boy has ever made you feel. There are boys who will make you feel hollow and cheap and replaceable. But there are also boys who will be madly in love with all that you are.
8. Not every boy will hurt you.
Just because some boys look like innocence and simplicity and careless laughter when they’re really heartbreak and self-hatred and regret on the inside doesn’t mean every boy is like that. There are boys who miss their mothers. Boys who smell like fresh laundry. Boys who are close to God. There are boys who are kind, and decent, and good, not just nice. These are the boys you miss so bad when it’s midnight and your heart is aching, these are the boys who will think, “I told you so” when you cry to them but will never tell it to your face, these are the boys who you deserve. These are the boys who will find you.
9. It is not your fault.
It is not your fault that you try to see the best in people. It is not your fault that they mistook your friendliness for flirtation. It is not your fault that you didn’t know how to say no. It is not your fault that they took that as yes. It is not your fault that you give people too many chances. It is not your fault that you believe they will change. It is not your fault that, deep down, you hope they will want you in every way a person wishes to be wanted. "They’re all disgusting people. They’re never going to prove you wrong,” your friends tell you. But it is not your fault that you hope.
10. You are not a fool.
You are not naive. You are not stupid. You are not pathetic. To be kind and hopeful and soft and breakable and human is the most remarkable thing in the world. Do not let all the cruelty and heartbreak and abandon turn you cold. This world is harsh enough as it is, and your vulnerability and your willingness to give and love and believe in love are everything.
