livingitupwell

[livingitupwell]

[livingitupwell]

[livingitupwell]

home.

I want to go home. I just need a hug from my father. I need to annoy my brother once and pull his cheeks. I need to eat a meal prepared by my mother. I need that best friend advice. I need to sleep on MY bed. I need to feel that floor under my feet. I need to tell my grandparents about my day. I need the familiarity. I need to not feel alone.

[livingitupwell]

Ex-best friends hold such crucial moments of out lives with themselves. I saw my sister reconnect with her ex-best friend today. That smile. The happiness. The little squeals of laughter that I could hear. And her face. She was radiant. Glowing. All because someone helped her reconnect with a person who she had hoped would be her maid of honor at some point in her life. It made me realize how some people hold a part of us with them without even realizing it.

At the end of the day, life comes in between. Choices and preferences interfere with our hearts. Sometimes, a person comes in between. But those memories stay. That connection heals. Those eyes still provide comfort. That hug is still a hug you'll never realize you were missing all this time.

[livingitupwell]

“You can’t live for someone else. At some point you just explode.”

— Matthew Quick

[livingitupwell]

I like grumpy men as much as the next voracious reader, but men who can make you laugh? men who actually argue with you? men who defend you and don't gloat about it? men who don't change their morals when they fall in love? men who annoy you and then kiss your grumpy face? ugh, I want a man like that.

[livingitupwell]

"Stay close to people who feel like sunlight"

There truly exists a profound beauty in having girlfriends in your life. With them emerges a conversation where the weight of worldly worries fades into the background as you remember the art of genuine smiles.

They redefine friendship.

They make you realise who to live for. They make you realise what you love.

They exist beyond physicality.

They help you remember how to smile again.

I don't think people realise how fantastic, how special it is, that two people choose to spend time with each other, over and over.

At the end of the day, it's always about friendships. Everything is.

"The best friends of our childhood are the loves of our lives."

We have to realise that at the end of the day, it's about those people who would actually cross an ocean to see you. It's the number of people who will make a slightly larger than thumb effort to be there for you.

So, truly, make the friendship bracelets and take the moment and taste it, because you never know when you'll see them again.

This post is dedicated to all kinds of friendships. Today, hug your best friend a little longer if you have the privilege of meeting her/him. Write that long, cringy text to your online best friend. Give your best friends a bouquet. Go skydiving with them. Or maybe just sit and watch Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Laugh. Cry. Make them realise that their smile lights up your heart.

[livingitupwell]

I feel seen.

My cartoon for this weekend’s Guardian books.

p.s. my latest book cartoons collection is Revenge of the Librarians: tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

[livingitupwell]

currently suffering from the inability to read another book out of respect for the previous one

[livingitupwell]

Kiersten White, The Chaos of Stars

[livingitupwell]

Perhaps I wanted you to fight for me the way I would've fought for you.

When I told you we had to end it, that we had to go on our own separate paths, I wanted you to say no. I wanted you to tell me you would never let me go. I wanted you to say that you couldn’t imagine living life without me, that you would never love anyone as much as you loved me, even if it sounds a little selfish. I wanted you to fight for me, to stop me from leaving. But all you said was, “I’ve been thinking the same thing for a while now.”

[livingitupwell]

[livingitupwell]

I can confirm that daring someone to marry you is the most insane yet attractive way to propose.

[livingitupwell]

[livingitupwell]

He smiled at her like she was his world. She looked at him like his eyes were the ocean and she was ready to drown. They looked at each other with an intensity which people didn’t believe in. It was the kind of love that was worth crossing oceans for. It was the sense of home that was rare to find. It was the kind of love that was secretly communicated with eyes and smiles. The world blurred and all they saw was each other.

-excerpt from a love story I may write

[livingitupwell]

For you, I'd steal the moon.

[livingitupwell]

“She turned to me and whispered, don’t you just love it when you get so excited you forget to breathe? And the thought of her smiling eyes still makes me laugh.”

— Brian Andreas