written last year, speaking to me even now 

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If there is something I've been learning since I've entered university, it really is how we are consistently nudged to grow up. To compromise on our hope, to compromise on our dreams so that we can fit them into pre-packed lunch boxes, that we may ration out our dreams so we can feed ourselves for the rest of our lives.

If there is something that has come crashing on me in this season, it really is the fact that sometimes, the way you love someone isn't the way people expect to be loved. And that can hurt really bad. These are the days, I am young and full of fire but it is pouring outside.

I am a child fighting to stay one. This conflict of head and heart is a battle I have waged both ways countless of times. And perhaps this is my declaration and my resolution poured out in writing, in words that can anchor my soul the next time I feel the ache of growing old and losing hope.

This is my plea.. to stay gold, to stay believing. To be hopeful, to be loving, to be frustratingly kind. And to you who recognise these feelings, stay young. Throw your heads back and laugh- laugh laughs that brighten up the room, laugh laughs that make your sides ache, laugh laughs that make the earth grumble and the trees shake. Close your eyes and breathe. Think of every beautiful thing that has turned your world upside down- quiet evening waters, 'i'm right here', tuesday nights. Think about the endless possibilities your future holds. Growing up will be inevitable and hard. And painful. But fight to stay young, to allow yourself to breathe. Even when it gets hard to pay the bills, even when you have to watch your parents age and slowly wither, even when the busyness of life snatches your best friends away from the world you used to swear by. When its 3 in the morning, nothing makes sense and you're screaming, stop and breathe. Don't let the light go out from your eyes. And tell yourself with child-like faith that things will get better. Find hope in small, minuscule things. In the pages of a book, in the skip of a step, in that one ray of sunlight peeking through golden hair. Breathe. And fight to stay brave. Fight to stay sane. Fight to stay consistently captivated by the good of life. There is an ocean of love out there, just beyond the horizon.

Actually,

there is an ocean in here, too. In your quiet center. Where the child in you glows- pink cheeks and chubby hands. She reaches for everything she sees and embraces everything without any preconceived notions. She is the light of your soul, refusing to let negativity in. She has bright eyes and a big heart. There is an ocean in here, where hope hibernates. You are in absolute control and you have absolute power to change the way things are- to be hopeful in hopefulness, to choose to be a source of warmth in a cold and hard world.

There is an ocean in here. Right where you are. And it is yours, thousands and thousands of miles of water that runs wide and runs deep, that never runs out. It is yours, it is yours if you choose.