Kelly Douglas

If it’s love, it won’t hurt.

You struggle with the thought that you heal others to avoid healing yourself.

I’m privileged to live in a world in which it feels fairly safe for me to be myself. 

You feel like your life is escaping you, like your best years are falling far behind you.

Like my fellow unlucky-in-love 2020 daters, I didn’t ask to fall for someone as our world devolved into absolute chaos.

This is me trusting that you’ll never break my heart. 

Fellow white people, we need to be stronger allies.

Despite the wounds you bear and the scars you carry, the pain of the past, and the burden of the present, you are innately worthy of a life worth living.

You can’t love yourself unless you look like a bikini model — everyone who doesn’t conform to society’s arbitrary beauty standards is selling you complete BS.

Your anxiety may deceive you, convincing you that the longer you stall, the calmer you’ll feel as the terrifying moment you’ve been dreading arrives to haunt you.

My friends don’t see the sheer energy it takes to drag myself out of bed every morning. 

God, please bring me back to You.