sometimes you’re so busy trying to mop up the mess of someone else’s grief, that you forget to spill your own tears.  sometimes they dry up and fade away before they ever find courage to fall.  yet, they come to laugh when you’re not looking, haunting the back of your tired eyelids.  

don’t spend your life trying to swim in someone else’s ocean.  not when you’re drowning in your own.  

and yes, maybe they cry louder.  maybe their heartache bleeds a deeper shade of red-- but don’t let it quiet your own cries and don’t let it paint over your own hurt.

and if no one else has told you this, then hear me now--

     1. you’re allowed to feel what you feel
     2. you don’t need anyone’s permission to grieve

own your tears. they have value, even if someone else’s pain has made you believe otherwise.