I can do this… I can start over. I can save my own life and I’m never going to be alone as long as I have stars to wish on and people to still love.

Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back. I’m going to help you forgive the things that you won’t let yourself forget.

But I love you and I want you and I need you. Can’t you see that? This world has nothing to offer me if it doesn’t include you.

For so many years, I couldn’t understand why every time I thought that someone finally loved me, like… for real, they would eventually turn to vapor. Every person whom I’ve ever loved is trapped inside of my chest. I’ve breathed all of them in so deeply that I’ve nearly choked and died on every soul that I’ve ever given myself to.

I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself — my past and the kaleidoscope of mistakes, failures and wrong turns that have stacked unbearable regret upon my shoulders.

Does our purpose on Earth directly link to the people whom we end up meeting? Are our relationships and experiences actually the required dots that connect and then lead us to our ultimate destinies?

I fantasize the night sky to be like a cosmic blue print of my life as I close my eyes and unbutton my heart…. just in case anyone up there is listening.

Something, somewhere, knows what’s best for me and promises to keep sending me people and experiences to light my way as long as I live in gratitude and keep paying attention to the signs.

I’ve grown up defined by this desperate, undeniable, ‘can’t breathe’ kind of space inside of myself and I’m afraid that the diagnosis is fatal.