Life can spiral in weird ways, sometimes in the form of difficult yet necessary lessons. This is particularly true when you’re pouring your heart into making your life’s dream real.

Ten years ago, I arrived in Seattle with just a car full of my stuff. I didn’t know a soul, nor did I have a job lined up during the height of the recession. If you don’t know my backstory, my previous life in Virginia was fraught with severe interpersonal trauma for as long as I can remember. Back then, I was 23 years old and had hit the darkest point of my entire life. This 3,000-mile move was a last resort to redirect the way things were going. I was determined to flourish a life in the city of my dreams, one that would accept the gifts I have to offer.

Seattle offered a safe haven to foster healing and growth as a creative, vegan, feminist queer woman who has a penchant for cats and black coffee. I’ve fantasized about living here since I was 16 years old. I didn’t visit until I was 22, and it really was love at first sight. A year later, I visited again. Then I suddenly moved two weeks later–if I lost that window of time, then there would never be another opportunity to escape. Never have I a found a place that feels so much like home. Seattle may not be for everyone, and it can be a tough circle to crack at times, but this city still took me right in just like that.

My purposes of moving to Seattle were 1. to be an artist, and 2. to find inner peace and happiness.

It took many hard lessons while building a new life here.

Good things don’t come easy

Moving here was a terrifying decision–what if it doesn’t work out? Either way, it still came at a terrible price: I ended up losing everything in order to find my happiness.

It wasn’t pretty. My mental state was in deep shambles, and things got worse before they got better. I even teetered on homelessness, and slipped into addiction in multiple forms for a few years. It seemed like there was no end in sight.

Despite those hardships, the desire to build a life here stayed. I never once doubted that this is where I belong. Despite everything else, for the first time, I felt safe in this progressive city.

I kept going, and kept working to get on my feet. Eventually this enormous leap of faith of moving here brought great returns. I made more friends here than I ever had in my previous life, as I became involved in multiple communities. I sought help to work through my past and to make peace with it. This helped me muster up enough courage to circumnavigate the world on my own. One of my favorite galleries invited me to be a resident artist, a position I happily took for 2 1/2 years. I was truly beginning to find inner peace. Everything was coming true, as new dreams and ambitions unfolded.

You have to keep on keepin’ on, even when the odds are stacked against you. Take chances, make mistakes, and learn a thing…or several.

We spiral up in life

Now that another year has passed, I’ve returned to the same point in this life-spiral. The difference is that this point is on several new upper levels with more experience. We gently spiral up in life.

Here’s a list of life’s lessons that I learned in the past ten years. When your past has been difficult and dark, your view of the world may be bleak. Living that way was exhausting; that’s not how anyone operates by default. Moving to Seattle gave a second chance to return to myself.

When you finally realize that the best things (like love and inspiration, for instance) are actually abundant than scarce, you see that the world is actually not as a terrible place as you thought. The journey doesn’t stop there, though. Even though I come from a dark past, at least I learned so much and have a lot to be thankful for. Life’s so weird, and I like to think of it as an interesting ride. As a friend said, when you stagnate and your world shrinks, that’s when you start dying. And I prefer to live.

I learned that…

• Intuition makes a better compass than logic.
• There are more good people than bad people in the world. It’s the bad ones that really stand out and ruin it for everyone else.
• It’s “espresso,” not “expresso.”
• Emotions cannot be explained by logic.
• Self-esteem and confidence must be built from the ground up; they cannot be given.
• The beauty industry that promises weight loss, beauty, and other superficial things are exploiting your insecurities to make a profit. There was nothing wrong with you in the first place. You are fine just the way you are.
• If you haven’t failed, then you haven’t tried hard enough.
• Life isn’t full of despair when your mindset shifts from “scarcity” to “enough.”
• People generally don’t keep score on favors you do for each other.
• Fear is not love.
• People are generally as afraid of judgment as you are.
• Usually people don’t care about what you do because they’re busy focusing on themselves.
• You can’t take everything people say seriously.
• Don’t take things personally.
• We live in context.
• You can’t grow if you keep going through life avoiding mistakes.
• People who hurt others habitually on purpose are often emotional black holes.
• Never trust anyone who doesn’t have or show any vulnerabilities. When someone isn’t afraid of anything at all, it shows that they literally don’t care about anything but themselves in the end. They most likely have no integrity, either.
• In the end, it’s not about never getting hurt. What matters more is how you manage the pain. Going through life without pain is not an option.
• The kind of people and environment you attract generally depends on your emotional health and well-being.
• A lot of times, people are not aware of what they’re doing. They can’t see what others can, even if it is really bad. They can’t see their own shadow.
• We live in relation to each other in the grand scheme of everything else.
• When your heart is broken, think about how many times it has happened in the past, especially if it was worse then. Now think about how many times it will happen in the future. This too shall pass, and it takes all the time it needs.
• Deliberately suffering through life on the premise that it makes you stronger and tougher, when the option to live a happier and fulfilling one is easily available, is really no way to live at all.
• Just gaining material knowledge doesn’t make you more intelligent. Intelligence is how you apply this knowledge to understand and comprehend the world around you.
• People who talk a lot of shit are 1) doing it to make themselves feel better; and/or 2) self-loathing and can’t stand seeing others doing better than they are.
• Living well really is the best revenge.
• Two wrongs really don’t make a right. Don’t bring yourself down to the other person’s level, but rather try setting an example of how to be.
• Embrace your quirks; they are the strongest traits you have.
• You cannot accept responsibility for other people’s actions.
• The closest people in your life should be the ones who help you grow the most. You should inspire and motivate each other to grow the way you’re meant to and become better people.
• If you’ve seriously lost touch with who you really are (in other words, your soul), you can bring yourself back, but you can’t do it alone. You’ll need guidance for that.
• Think about how hard it is to change yourself. Now think about how hard it is to try changing someone else.
• Love can wait.
• Life is not a contest.
• “Normal” is relative.
• In the end, you have to do the best you can with what you have.
• When you break away from perfection, you become more creative and venture out further in your imagination.
• No one can do everything alone. Humans are social beings and we all need each other.
• That being said, make sure your needs are met first before meeting the needs of others.
• There are no such thing as absolutes. Nothing is pure.
• The world doesn’t end when you step out of rigid boundaries.
• The world doesn’t end when a lot of things don’t go the way you intend them to.
• People who don’t take responsibility for their actions are not worth your time or energy.
• You have a right to feel your emotions and be in touch with them. If it’s a bad feeling, it needs to be respected and felt in order to pass through before you feel better.
• You can set aside pain or bury it deep inside to forget, but that won’t set you free. The only way out is through.
• Friends who discourage you from following your dreams are not really your friends, no matter how close they are.
• There doesn’t have to be a yes or no answer to everything.
• Sometimes, something can have two contradicting answers and still be valid.
• Sometimes, there just isn’t an answer as to why something is.
• And sometimes, people make up an answer under the premise that having one, even if it’s wrong, is better than not having an answer at all.
• Over-apologizing annoys people. There was most likely nothing to be sorry about in the first place.
• Don’t apologize if you don’t feel sorry.
• It’s okay to be human, and it’s more than okay to have bodily functions and emotions.
• It’s okay to want and need attention. Humans are hard-wired for it.
• In the end it’s not about what has been lost, but rather what has been gained.
• Being whole and secure in yourself requires being nurtured with love, respect, and compassion.
• Perfectionism is one of the worst mentalities ever. All it does is stunt emotional and personal growth. Forgive your mistakes, learn from them, and move on.
• People who gossip a lot do it because they don’t have rich inner lives of their own.
• The cruelest people are most often the ones hurting the most.
• Even if you never find your “soulmate,” it’s really not the end of the world. Another person doesn’t need to complete you, but rather augment your life.
• Even though some great friendships can be brief, the impact they have in your life is significant and real. Silently thank them for their role in your life and move on.
• Letting go of expectations makes life a lot more fun.
• Patience is required to grow as a person, just like how you can’t yell at a plant to grow faster.
• Things, decisions, views and perspectives, etc. don’t need to be a polarized binary. There can be a spectrum.
• You can always take a break from something you love and come back to it anytime.
• Self-healing cannot be rushed. It takes as long as it needs to take.
• Everything will fall into place; it just takes patience.