This is how you survive the unsurvivable, this is how you lose that which you cannot bear to lose, this is how you reinvent yourself, overcome your abusers, fulfill your ambitions and meet the love of your life: by following what is true, no matter where it leads you.

Augusten Burroughs

Categorized in : Matter Overcoming Ambition

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

Augusten Burroughs

beautiful inspirational life

You would be amazed by what you can give up, lose, or break, and yet still be a person who gets happy over brownies.

Augusten Burroughs

giving-up would-be happiness

Some damage is too severe, some harm endures. And what you have to do is accept it. And by accept it I mean, don’t be the paralyzed person in the bed who is waiting to walk again. Realize, it’s never gonna happen. And find some other way to get around –swing from a vine, get a Mad Max wheelchair. Anything but…wait.

Augusten Burroughs

swings mad mean

No matter how huge your loss, as long as you remain engaged with your life, the best days of your life may still be ahead of you. Don't misunderstand me: the pain of your loss will remain with you for the rest of your life. But great joy will be there right beside it. Deep sorrow and deep joy can exist within you, side by side. At every moment. And it's not confusing. And it's not a conflict.

Augusten Burroughs

pain loss long

Maybe you feel pressure to be positive because so many people rely on your good, fake-positive energy? If that's the case, screw everybody else. You're not a bottle of Valium.

Augusten Burroughs

positive-energy fake people

The past does not haunt us. We haunt the past. We allow our minds to focus in that direction. We open memories and examine them. We reexperience emotions we felt during the painful events we experienced because we are recalling them in as much detail as we can.

Augusten Burroughs

focus memories past

Love is a helium-based emotion; Love always takes the high road.

Augusten Burroughs

taking-the-high-road emotion love-is

Red hair is great. It's rare, and therefore superior.

Augusten Burroughs

red-hair red hair

You are allowed to be alive. You are allowed to be somebody different. You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single thing to anyone, ever.

Augusten Burroughs

different inspiration goodbye

But feelings, no matter how strong or “ugly,” are not a part of who you are. They are the radio stations your mind listens to if you don’t give it something better to do. Feelings are fluid and dynamic; they change frequently. Feelings are something you HAVE, not something you ARE. Like physical beauty, a cold sore, or an opinion. Admitting you feel rage or terrible pain or regret or some old, rotten blame does not mean these feelings are part of who you are as a person. What these feelings mean is, you have to change your thinking to be free of them.

Augusten Burroughs

regret pain strong

When you have your health, you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all.

Augusten Burroughs

matter

This is what you should know about losing someone you love. They do not travel alone. You go with them.

Augusten Burroughs

someone-you-love losing-someone should

Stars should not be seen alone. That's why there are so many. Two people should stand together and look at them. One person alone will surely miss the good ones.

Augusten Burroughs

stars two people

Time moves only forward, never back. We look forward to a moment and then it arrives and an instant later it is gone. Like something on the surface of a river that we reached for but did not touch in time and it carried on, away. You cannot be a prisoner of your past against your will. Because you can only live in the past inside your mind.

Augusten Burroughs

rivers past moving

I wouldn't want to waste any of my brain cells on forgiving if it's holding me back.

Augusten Burroughs

forgiving cells brain

I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stunned by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, "Hi." They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word.

Augusten Burroughs

cities people years

But she did love him. I believe it. I know exactly how that is. To love somebody who doesn't deserve it. Because they are all you have. Because any attention is better than no attention.

Augusten Burroughs

knows attention believe

Smoking had become my favorite thing in the world to do. It was like having instant comfort, no matter where or when.

Augusten Burroughs

smoking comfort world

Although I was able to maintain a pleasant expression, I was mentally throwing up in her face.

Augusten Burroughs

able expression faces

After I got my coffee, I leaned against a stop sign and sipped, pretending it was a normal day and I was only up this early so that I could go running and not because I'd just been on a killing spree.

Augusten Burroughs

normal coffee running