roksolana

people always say, “you can have both.” but they don’t tell you what it costs when the person you love isn’t built to hold both versions of you. the soft one and the sharp one. the one who kisses him and the one who builds empires. some boys only love you when you’re sitting still.

If you throw caution to the wind, you will inevitably find yourself blown about in every direction. You’ll find yourself living in a random city, wearing clothes someone else thinks are cool, with a head full of thoughts that are not your own.

“I think I completely reinvent myself every few years,” Kuang told me. “I have different interests and different expressions and different priorities.”

“I just don’t think I’m very good yet,” she said. “I actually am afraid of being totally happy with my work, because, if you are perfectly satisfied with your abilities, there’s nowhere else to go. You might as well be dead.”

If kindness is your criteria for judging people, you may not find so much meaning in other characteristics: gender, sexuality, how someone dresses, their profession, nationality, skin shade, religion, accent, political affiliation, financial status—the long and growing list employed to manipulate us to think of someone as other.