Words to Live By

3 Days, 3 Quotes Challenge.

Thank you to /momentaryreverie for nominating me to complete this challenge. Go and follow her blog, www.momentaryreverie.wordpress.com. She posts some beautiful pictures and thoughtful pieces about her life and writing journey. Thanks for the support you have been showing my blog, and also for thinking of me with this challenge!

I’m going to take you back to summer, 2012.

I was 16 years old and had just finished school. After applying to a summer school programme at the London School of Economics, I made my way there for two weeks to study Psychology.

Being awkward and shy, it was a difficult experience for me, socially. This was the first time I had commuted up to London on my own, going to a place where I wouldn’t know a single person.

At the age of 16 though, something within me started making me push myself out of my comfort zone. Don’t worry, I found my way back in… But the next couple of months would see me changing schools to go to sixth form, and also coming out to my parents.

Looking back, this was an amazing opportunity. The university was great, and although I went on to study English Literature, I found the Psychology course very interesting. One task we had to complete was to rewrite a fairytale, giving one of the characters the symptoms of a mental illness. My bipolar Cinderella Story was iconic, trust me.

The highlight of the course though, was meeting the professor. Although, I can’t remember her name which is slightly embarrassing…

She was an African-American woman, who spoke with so much charisma and connected with us on a personal level. The course was a part of an Aim Higher initiative, giving students from non-privileged backgrounds the chance to experience university and put the prospect of going to one on their radar. She was extremely encouraging and motivational, and in the end I turned out to be the first one in my family to get my degree!

But more than anything, there’s one quote that she gave to us that has stuck with me since 2012, and I will never forget it.

She told us that her grandmother would always tell her:

“Love is a verb”.

It’s such a simple quote, but I find it so beautiful.

The verb, to love is something we are all capable of doing, something we all hope for in our hearts, and something that we all must choose to do.

 

Maybe I’ll pop this into a poem:

Life can be difficult, and life can be cruel, 

But love is a verb, and that we must do.

 

So on Day 1, here are some words that mean a lot to me. I choose to live by them, everyday.