The expectation is the foundation of a house built with bricks of heartache and defeat and a roof of false promises. Sometimes, you stay the night just to let the hinges creak shut as if to welcome you back and you go blindly into the dark, eyes wide looking for not-monsters that share their secrets with you in a quiet affair. You like to believe that monsters don’t exist here, not really anyway, because how can there be when these not-monsters show you something that feels like coming home after years of being away. But, somehow, sooner or later, you find that you always end up feeling just a little homesick.

When you find yourself home, let expectation sit as rubble on top of rubble trying to piece its way back together after an earthquake. Forget about the ways the plastic wrap of your skin has yet to learn how to embrace your bones the right way. Forget about the numbers that promise self-love late at night; there were there long enough to leave the door open but as your eyelashes flutter open, you never really know if you’ve just forgotten to shut the door. Forget about the words that find themselves crawling up your throat trying to find glass homes to shatter.

Instead, let yourself feel.

Fall in love way too much and way too often that you forget which way is up. Put your heart and soul in every embrace and don’t let go until your lungs have forgotten what it’s like to breathe. If you like someone, tell them loudly or tell them with your eyes to the ground and your fingers grasping your sweater like a lifeline –– just tell them. Wear your heart on your sleeve and every day, watch as backroads of people you’ve loved and places you’ve been showing up on a roadmap leading you on a journey back to your life. Don’t be afraid to be alone. Let solitude and loneliness take your hand for a dance and let the clock strike midnight. Lose sleep and look up to the sky long enough you know each constellation like the back of your hand. Run away from home and follow the stars. If you don’t know where to go, flip a coin. Heads for left, tails for right. Nowhere seems like a good place to go because no matter what road you take, you’ll get there. The world has a tendency of making you feel small so remember that when you look at the moon, a stranger continents away is looking at it too.

Sing at the top of your lungs even when you can’t (especially when you can’t). Dance even if you’ve got two left feet. Pick yourself up when life knocks you down. Some days, it will have pushed you so hard you don’t know how to get up anymore. But even then, find a reason to get up because there’s always one no matter how seemingly insignificant (but really, nothing in life as grand as ours is ever insignificant). Laugh so hard noise no longer comes out of your mouth and you find your palms clutching your stomach because it hurts. Let it hurt. Cry. Cry hard enough you build rivers on your pillowcases and jump straight into the storm. Always jump first and think second — it only takes 10 seconds of courage to change everything. Smile, smile always, smile even when the stranger you made eye contact with didn’t. Inspire and be inspired. Find inspiration in everything. Read and learn a new language. Be great and don’t settle for anything less.

You’re given 365 chances, not all of which are guaranteed so breathe every moment in like its your last and live like you would on your last day.

Most importantly, love yourself. Learn to love parts of yourself without having to find the strings that tie you to others to stitch up the holes. Love yourself wholly and unapologetically and don’t look back. At the end of our lives, we’ll be washed away by waves kissing the shore and only then, will we have felt a love strong enough to plant us back to the soil like seeds waiting for spring.