“I am giving the present the opportunity to hold just as much joy as the past.”

I am learning to hold to hopeful light.

I am making space for each emotion I need to feel.

I am enough for me.

I must learn to separate my bad days from who I am – we are not the same.

Embrace your own reality.

And as the rain fell and the birds kept singing, I realized that freedom is a choice.

Though thunder clouds hover tight like a cage, the sun never stops rising on the ones who chase healing.

Wildflowers need water, so I too must not chase away the rain.

Drowning in grey days rising up into blue, I will choose to love myself in all colors.

Some days I am okay, and some days I am not but always, I am worth every struggle.

A note to all that yearns within me: every breath is a possibility.

And although the strands of your soul feel weary today, your worth remains the same – you are graceful amidst pain.

Wherever you are let life find you.

Nature has become a part of me when I am lifeless, I go to her – she is life.

I am breathing in light when light is present. I am choosing to let joy in.

Through the haze, I am journeying. To the light, I am clinging.

Full nakedness! All my joys are due to thee, as souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, to taste whole joys.

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, Gang aft a-gley, And leave us nought but grief and pain, For promised joy.

For since mine eyes your joyous sight did miss, my cheerful day is turned to cheerless night.

If I dream I have you, I have you, for all our joys are but fantastical.

True joy is the earnest which we have of heaven, it is the treasure of the soul, and therefore should be laid in a safe place, and nothing in this world is safe to place it in.

Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.

A mother who is not everything for her children: a friend, a teacher, a confidant, a source of joy and founded pride, inducement and soothing, reconciliator, judge and forgiver, that mother obviously chose the wrong job.

Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.