Stephanie Althoff

Life isn’t a fairytale. Life is a six year old kid on a bike making 12 mistakes before they get something right.

That doesn’t mean I don’t feel, that I don’t hurt, or that things don’t get to me. It’s not being ignorant or running from the truth, it’s simply deciding to actively internalize the bad and share the good.

We’re all planners or leapers. Deliberate or meticulous. But we all leap.

Do good things come to those who wait? Or do good things come to those who go out and get them?

You don’t need to know everyone’s story and you don’t need to understand why someone’s feeling the way that they are, all you need to do is remind them that there is still happiness in this world. It’s still attainable.

Your loved ones’ happiness shouldn’t be a reminder of your own lack thereof. Instead, it should be a beacon of hope. It exists. It’s attainable.

You might never see them again. Who cares? Honestly, that’s kind of the fun in it.

People are going to make you angry, sad, confused, and upset. Don’t fight fire with fire – break the chain.

Letting it go is moving forward. Letting it go is moving on. Letting it go is surviving in a world in which survival is anything but a promise.

Sometimes we need a person running alongside us, telling us we can keep going, that we can cross that finish line.

Sometimes we so desperately cling to the potential in people that we completely ignore the realities that stand before us.

It’s not until we’re truly burned that we realize how fragile our steady, beating hearts can be.