Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies

Virginia Woolf wrote about the importance of making space for yourself in A Room of One’s Own. Though written in 1929, her words are just as urgent today. Her most quoted passage is probably that in order to create, in order to pursue her own passions, “a woman must have money and a room of her own,” free from distraction and judgment.

We get this one human body, and whether you hate it or love it, it’s yours. Any time spent feeling uncomfortable or ashamed of it, past adolescence, is absolutely wasted.

You can’t control how the outside world treats you, but you can and must decide how you treat yourself

Life is not a series of crises to be endured. Life is to be enjoyed.

There is an excellent line where Alexander Hamilton challenges Aaron Burr (who seems to have v. shape-shifting, wishy-washy principles): “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?”

That which you do not deal with deals with you. Always.

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
—Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Paris was exactly as I remembered it: a moody bitch.

I’m done hoping for a different past and a better childhood. I can no sooner have those things than I can build a time machine. Now I’m getting to know my dad for the man he is.

That is where you have all the power in the world. Try letting go of the notion that anyone is mistreating you on purpose, and stand back as you watch resentment and anger float away. It takes time, it takes practice, but it does work. As you clear away all of those feelings that were holding you down, that were telling you, “This horrible thing is being done TO ME,” watch as you find more room in yourself for love and compassion.