“”I vow to never lose sight of my friends if I fall in love again," she said. "I’ll never forget how important you all are and how much we need each other.””

Here to announce that I too shall be making this vow! And sharing it with my girlfriends! Because I love and cherish them so much! Because they have taught me how to love and be loved! 💗

“”I feel like I'm in jail for something I didn't do," she told me. "I feel like my life is somewhere over there and I'm locked somewhere over here, being told I can't reach it. I want my old life back." "You'll get there. It won't be like this forever, I promise.””

“It takes a village to mend a broken heart.”

That first line does a great job at capturing the pain of a breakup you didn’t want to happen. I felt that way when the boy and I broke up. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I didn’t ask for this, about how all I wanted was for us to resume our old life. Sigh, but that life was over, there’s no going back.

I appreciate this chapter so much, my village of women sure did heal my broken heart — I’m so grateful for every one of them. ❤️‍🩹

“”It may seem that life is difficult at times but it's really as simple as breathing in and out," she read. "Rip open hearts with your fury and tear down egos with your modesty. Be the person you wish you could be, not the person you feel you are doomed to be. Let yourself run away with your feelings. You were made so that someone could love you. Let them love you.””

Damn, what a powerful passage. It is a reminder for a couple things: -Beneath the chaos, we can find something steady and grounding -We are not condemned to our patterns and past -Feelings aren’t something to suppress, rather something to move through -Being loved isn’t something you have to earn but something you’re allowed to accept

I’m going to put this up on my wall. 🤍

“I would like to pause the story a moment to talk about “nothing will change." I've heard it said to me repeatedly by women I love during my twenties when they move in with boyfriends, get engaged, move abroad, get married, get pregnant. "Nothing will change." It drives me bananas. Everything will change. Everything will change. The love we have for each other stays the same, but the format, the tone, the regularity, and the intimacy of our friendship will change forever.”

Ok—maybe because I’m one beer in, waiting for my friends to finish up skiing, and feeling so grateful for the moments I get to share with them, that I feel a bit emotional reading this.

Sigh. This captures the fear I’ve had lurking in me lately. I’m so terrified of change in my friendships, especially the change of moving away, of having kids. The uncertainty of the future scares me, of how much my friendships will change, though I know we will figure it out. I guess that means that I’d like to take advantage of the present moments we have with one another, to tell my friends how much I love them and how proud of them I am and how lucky I am that they have shared a piece of themselves with me and accepted me as well. 💗

“Growing up engenders self-awareness. And self-awareness kills a self-titled party girl stone-cold dead.”

The fear of hangxiety has grown quite strong the older I get. Just the thought of someone telling me about something I did while drunk that I can’t remember brings a wave of dread. That side of me, the care free party girl, has most likely been left in my early 20s. I channel her sometimes, but am wary of letting her fully take the wheel.

“Yeah, we need to find them,” I chime in with a slur. “I think it was that short guy with the long hair.”

LMAO she’s so unhinged — this story made me giggle. I can’t really judge, I’m sure I made some more than questionable decisions when I was 18 lol. Although I will say the author was a bit more sex-focused than I remember being back then. I almost was scared of sex and having a high body count, which I don’t care about now that I’m 28.