Are You Quiet When You Need To Be Loved? Or Do You Raise Your Voice Into A Lion’s Roar? Will You Nudge

Ijeoma Umebinyuo, from Questions for Ada; “Pain”

It is never too late to be what you might have been. -George Eliot

First, parts of you die, and then the things you think define you fade into the background. But you're still in control, you didn't need them anyway. Then you wake up one October morning, and you're seeping through your own fingers like water. You have no idea whom you are, you only have a vague idea of whom you want to be, but that's hard and you need to grieve for the girl who's dying inside you, because God knows she's carried you. Alas, you live in a world full of people with questions and they feel entitled to you remaining the same. You can't explain that your paradigms are not just shifting, they're blowing up and turning into ash in your hands, so you just fold into yourself. But Yourself is falling apart, and it's just...living God what is happening?

Looks like I'll be sighing my way through the year again.

Sometimes we think it's the people but it's actually how they affect us. Find those who inspire you to love, forgive, chase your dreams and never allow you to feel insignificant in any kind of way.

Short note for my mid 20 somethings. I feel like I’m stagnating and that’s hard. I feel like I hit my peak 5 years ago. I feel aimless and hopeless and lost. I feel constantly drained. I am measuring my self worth based on how much money I can earn a year and what I say to people when they ask me what I’m doing. At the moment, nothing. I’m doing nothing. I’m unemployed and exhausted by it. I’m tired and tired and tired. I’m trying to remind myself that I’m more than this moment right now. I’m trying to remind myself that there is light and someday I’ll be bathed in it.

Ijeoma Umebinyuo, from Questions for Ada

Do all men tell the woman they love that they love her or some are too proud to say it?

I truly believe that there’s no pride in love. And I don’t mean having no self respect or confidence. I just mean that loving someone completely is the most selfless thing you can do and sometimes it’s terrifying to be that open but you do it for them and you do it for yourself.