She has a million reasons to give up — on love, on her career, on herself 

 but she keeps going. She keeps hoping. She keeps believing that things 

are going to get better.

She’s been through hell and back, but you would never know that by looking

 at her. She wears a wide smile. She talks with enthusiasm. She acts like the 

world is a beautiful place, like she’s never gotten chewed up and spit out by 

boys that looked her in the eyes and lied about loving her.

              But she has been hurt. She has been lied to. Led on. Cheated on. Ghosted. Abandoned.

        But it doesn’t matter how many boys she had to erase from her contact list, how many   relationships she got excited over and then disappointed by. All of her exes combined aren’t enough to convince her to give up hope. They’re not going to trick her into believing that she’s unlovable. She knows what she deserves, she knows that it’s out there, and she knows that she’s going to find it. She still has faith. She still has strength.

Of course, her life isn’t all about boys. She has the same idea when it comes to her career. She’s never going to stop pursuing her goals, no matter how many times the voice in the back of her head tells her no, she’s not good enough, she’s never going to make it happen.

She may have big dreams, but that doesn’t stop her from being realistic. She understands that she’s not going to get anything handed to her — not a job, not a promotion, not a raise.

She knows that she has to work for her success. And she does. She works her ass off.

In fact, no one realizes how much work she puts in, because she doesn’t brag about it and she doesn’t whine about it. If she has to turn down a night out with her friends, because she’s stuck working the night shift, then so be it. And if she has to show up for the morning shift with a hangover, she’ll survive. So that's her.

She does what she has to do without complaining. Without acting like it’s a big deal. She makes her life look easy — even though times are hard.

It’s not like she’s invincible. There are moments when she thinks about giving up. Late nights when she can’t fall asleep and plays out different scenarios in her mind. Or days when she scrolls through Facebook and sees someone the same age as her but twice as successful.

During those times, her hope evaporates. She feels stupid for trying. Like she’s been wasting her time. Like her life is going nowhere.

But, even though she might be depressed for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, she always remembers — that she’s strong, that she’s smart, that she’s more than capable of doing whatever the hell she wants.

She might lose hope temporarily, but she’ll never abandon it completely. She’ll never stop growing. Trying. Reaching. 

She’ll never stop giving everything she’s got.

Thought Catalog - By Holly Riordan,