It started with this email....

friends, fams, loves, 

This is not for blogs, just an e-mail - as I've taken a break to write other things.  What I miss most about blogging is making regular contact with you. And so I'm back to share something with the hopes that we can grow it together to become the biggest fattest compendium of Love.

tonight in my writing workshop, we had a little extra time for an exercise.  The prompt was to write for 15 minutes on instructions we would give to our child-self.  

I, of course, wrote to my child self about.. well... eh hem. yes.  

Love:

1) Only spend time with people who make you feel appreciated and beautiful.  If you have more energy when you part, rather than less or even neutral, this is a good sign.

2) Never stop doing what's best for you - for your health, creative and professional progress, etc. - at the expense of another.  Chances are, if they require that much sacrifice, your best interest in not a priority of theirs.

3) Take things slow.  It takes a lot of time to get to know the ins and outs of a person - and when you first start getting to know someone you're feeling sparky for, there are all kinds of bodily chemicals distorting logic and reality.  Be cool.

4) Learn how to be alone.  Never use love as a savior from feelings of desperate loneliness.

5) Never deny yourself the right to love.  From your first days to your last, you are always deserving, always worthy.

6) Red flags are there for a reason.  Excuses will always only amount to the disappointment that comes from empty promises.  

7) Feel happy for others when they fall in love even when you're not.  This is hope and evidence that it's real and possible.  

8) Don't fear a broken heart.  If you're lucky, it at some point will happen, and it will hurt like a bitch, and you will survive - and you will be so much stronger and self-aware as a result.  The ones that don't work teach us the most about what we really need and care about.  

9) Be kind to yourself.  No one's ever going to love you as much as you can love you.  And sometimes that love means saying goodbye to a love that doesn't fit the bill.

 

10) Please add yours.  One or 10.  Whatever flows.  Let's teach each other everything we know about love so we can do it together in the best ways we know how.

I'll compile the final draft and send it back to y'all.    

     

Love,

Halley