stop dwelling

When life catches you in a moment of vulnerability, when it holds up a mirror and it won't let you go until you examine yourself and your life and what you amount to, when this reflection covers you with a veil of heavy sadness and deep thoughts into the middle of the night, stop dwelling. Stop dwelling on the words you should have said, or did say but shouldn't have. Stop dwelling on the worst day of your life, the lashing out, the tears, the silence. Stop dwelling on the moment you stepped on someone's laptop cord in the library and didn't turn around to apologize when she muttered, "Wow." Stop dwelling on the day he told you you were beautiful for the first time in your life. He wasn't the one. You'll meet a man who looks at you and thinks you are the most beautiful woman in the room. And he'll never fail to tell you so, even when you feel flawed and unattractive. In fact, stop dwelling on your flaws. And lapses in judgment. So what if you ate close to fifty pecan tartlets over the course of Thanksgiving break and never went running like you told yourself you would all week? Hell, stop dwelling on the well-intentioned but slightly offensive comments your mother makes about you gaining weight, or the way your dad was always slightly wary of anything you baked from scratch. They care about you, even if they sometimes express that in abnormal ways. Stop dwelling on that day you noticed your friend falling for you as you gazed up at the stars next to him and did nothing to stop him. Stop dwelling on the way you broke his heart, all because you tried not to in the first place. Stop dwelling on the pieces of your heart that you've given away, only to get nothing back. Stop dwelling on the repeated mistakes you've made time after time, and are still making, the doubts revolving around your head day after day, the promises to yourself that you've broken, the moment you did something that you thought you'd never do and loathe yourself for doing.  

Stop dwelling. Forgive yourself for all of these things.

But never forget. Never forget what these have taught you, the ashes from which you can, and will, rise.