Forget how much it hurts and try again.

The above photo was taken about 2 years ago in LA by my best friend, Cory. I had just experienced a really bad heartbreak, so I ran away to LA for a week for a much needed best friend cleanse and some fresh perspective on life. Nothing soothes the soul quite like a week of cuddling with your bestie, a trip to Disneyland, and many late nights drinking wine and eating Thai take-out in bed talking about how scary, heartbreaking, and intense life can sometimes be. 

As we were casually walking down the street one night on our way home from a bar, I saw this note painted on the side of a cement wall. It was this big, blunt cinder block in the middle of the sidewalk on a busy LA street, staring me straight in the face. If that's not a sign from the universe after a blow to my heart then I don't know what is. The forces that be spared no subtlety, just threw this giant message right up in my grill to tell me "hey, you're going to be ok."

I look at this picture and I'm glad to say I hardly remember that girl anymore. On the inside she was so unbelievably distraught that she had to flee to her best friend's side before she had a nervous breakdown. She cried the entire 4 hour drive from Vegas to LA while sitting in solitude with nothing but her own thoughts and demons in the car with her. She couldn't feel anything past the vomit anxiously rising in her stomach when her head wouldn't stop spinning with unfathomable thoughts. That girl, though put together on the outside, was in shambles.

The good news? She made it through, and she emerged from the other side a better person.

We all have a past, and we all have the scars to prove it. We've all been hurt in some way or another, whether big or small. I've been hurt in much smaller ways pretty recently - when someone doesn't call me after a great date or a guy I thought I kind of liked makes me feel worthless after running into him at a bar. Those people will end up being small blips on my life's radar, yet I can still feel the slight sting in my heart, reminiscent of the burn you feel when you let your guard down and it all comes crashing down on top of you. This message from the universe is begging me to forget about it all and keep trying. Don't give up just because it can hurt so badly sometimes. Yes, it absolutely sucks when you feel a connection with someone and they don't feel the same way. It really sucks when you give someone a piece of you and they don't appreciate it (or worse, abuse it). And it REALLY freaking sucks when you love someone with your whole heart and they just don't love you back.

But do you give up because that someone you're interested in never called again? Do you give up because the guy that took you home with him wasn't actually interested in dating you? Do you stop trying because you just cannot possibly handle one more awful date? Do you swear off all men because one guy turned out to be a serial killer? (Ok, so maybe some of these things haven't exactly happened to me yet....) The universe is shouting "NO!" So you keep trying. You keep pushing on. You continue to get your heart broken because you would rather get your heart broken 1,000 times than miss out on the first time you lock eyes with your soulmate. You know deep down that in the end it will all make sense someday and you will feel a great sense of relief when you're tucked in bed one night laying next to the one you're meant to spend forever with. And all the ones who rejected you, hurt you, made you cry, question yourself, or feel even the slightest bit of doubt will never take up space in your mind again. You will be happy.

Forget how much it hurts, and try again.