When you want to fall — fall.
Evaporate and condensate,
but should you start raining,
come down pouring
and come with the clatter of a hurricane
If the birds stop chirping,
if the sunlight forgets you,
if you’ve got your shirttail caught in the fence
and you have no way of getting loose,
remember that you don’t exist for the purpose
of someone else and their pleasure
and even if you dedicated your life to it,
there’s no way you could please everyone
and if you came close, there’s no way
you’d get away with anything
but enduring damage
to the life that’s your own-
because you owe it to yourself to live for yourself.
You have a brain.
So use it and make decisions
all your own.
You have a body.
You’re lucky
if it’s born all healthy,
so keep it safe
and remember that there will be
a time for regrets-
take the question marks
that hover after everything you say
and bend them into a bow and arrows
to shoot blindly at the sky.
Hurt, be hurt.
Remember you are both the bird
and the archer’s aim,
the archer’s intent,
the archer’s hand
ask questions that you know
nobody can answer
and think about things that could exist
without our knowing
because we know only
through observing and measuring
and that is one of the sad truths
about being human
Get lost from time to time.
Find your way back.
Be found.
Take your fears as challenges.
See how many you can knock off by facing them. It’s okay to sing for no reason,
it’s okay to pirrouette down the street,
it’s okay to not be sorry sometimes
Remember that the song you do sing
will take more than a lifetime
for you to understand,
so don’t think you what the words mean.
Learn the meaning of free speech and gratitude.
Don’t be afraid to be curious.
It may have killed a cat
but you’re immune to curiosity sickness.
There’s too much out there
to ever know enough,
but make the most of the time you have
and get to know what you want, while you can.
Give generously, and ask for.
When you listen, hear.
Say what you mean
and mean what you say.
Protect yourself.
There is only one of you.
Do you know how rare you are?
5
The rewritten rules for growing girls