FIND REFUGE IN YOURSELF, COMFORT IN YOUR SILENCE

At some point, you need to be comfortable in being alone and the crucial silence that comes alongside it. Learn to get along really well with yourself and enjoy your own company. I think it's highly important. To be acquainted with yourself in the quiet. To be able to do things on your own terms and move at your own pace, unburdened by the pressures of other people's time frame. 

In the quiet, you will come to terms with your own insecurities. Caress your silence and listen carefully to your thoughts amidst these solitary periods. That's when you truly hear yourself. That's when you're most creative and your thoughts are loudest. Ponder on them and it will make sense. Try to figure out what yourself has been trying to tell you. That's when you get to know the soul dwelling inside your body. In that fleeting moment, you'll be free of pressure from social norms and judgment of individuals who only know you in plain sight. Nobody knows the depth of your struggles better than you. Nobody knows how many cycles of waiting and chasing you went through just to get by. In the quiet, you'll appreciate all of this more. You'll learn to embrace all aspects of your humanity and the dimensions of your soul. In being alone you will learn to be your own advisor. Give yourself enough credits on everything you accomplished alone. Pat yourself at the back for all the times you never dodged a bullet, for facing your ordeals head on. And when you can no longer hold it in, it is well and good to cry. Cry it out, cry as many rivers as you can. Drown yourself and emerge back even stronger. 

On nights when the stars are mad and you feel like they are out to get you, be your own refuge. Regularly take yourself out on movie dates. On lunch and dinner. YOU'LL GET TO CHOOSE WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU WANT. No one's going to complain about not wanting to see a predictable local film, you won't bore people into watching that documentary you always wanted to see, 'cause there's just you. You'll only be held accountable of your own feelings and preference. No one's going to pin down an "insensitive" accusation on you. True enough, being alone is also a period of selfishness, but it will never be at the expense of another, because the dealings are only within yourself. You get to decide where you want to dine and eat as much food as you'd like, in whatever serving, in whatever flavor and no one is going to give a look of reproach on you. Go to your favorite bookstores alone and stay there as long as you'd want. Indulge on the pages of the books you can't afford to buy. Go to the beach by yourself and bask in the orange sky. The feel of fine sand tickling your feet. Inhale the smell of ocean salt that lingers in the wind and for once, forget the world and live in that moment. Take yourself to cities you haven't been and immerse in their culture and tradition until it feels like home. 

You can take all the time you need, and while you're at it, enjoy.