We are all, more or less, a product of how we grew up. The friends we had, the role models we watched, the lessons we learned, the heartbreak we felt—all these things mold us into the somewhat misshapen adults we turn out to be. People enter and leave our lives, stretching our thoughts, smoothing our edges, polishing our dull areas, and sometimes poking holes in our soft spots. If you’re lucky, somebody will come along and stitch up those holes. If you’re even luckier, you’ll learn how to stitch up those holes on your own.

When I was fourteen, right after my first-ever boyfriend broke up with me, just as the entire world was in the middle of coming to an end, my father said something to me, something I remember whenever it comes time to start patching over the inevitable holes this world leaves.

He said, “Honeygirl, there’s so much heartbreak ahead of you.”

Imagine an overly-dramatic, middle-school, devastatingly heartbroken me hearing that.

My attitude could pretty much be described as utterly underwhelmed. I mean, seriously? Great. Thanks, dad. It makes me feel so much better knowing that, no matter how bad this moment is, there’s plenty more to look forward to. You should really talk people down from ledges for a living.

Now, I don’t even know if he remembers saying that to me, but it ended up being one of the most important things I ever heard.

What he was really saying, what I didn’t hear at the time, was:

This is your first heartbreak. And it sucks, and it hurts, and it feels like there’s no moving forward because you have never experienced something so tragic before. Pain is relative, only comparable to the other pains in life we all have the pleasure of enduring. The first shot you get will probably be the worst one. You have some stranger sticking a needle in you, penetrating the only thin layer of safety that shields you from the outside world. The second, the third, the tenth, they aren’t so bad...because you’ve been there, done that before. You know the world doesn’t crumble when it’s all done. It’s sore for a little bit, sure, but you slap a bandage on it and grab a lollipop and somehow the world keeps turning. The world keeps turning. Can you believe it? I won't even charge you for that little bit of insider information.

Take the heartbreak, absorb it, feel it, and then square up and get ready for the next punches life throws at you, because heartache doesn’t just come in the form of ended relationships—heartache is found in the death of a family member, witnessing injustice, losing a best friend, failing an important exam. Your heart is going to break a million times before it stops. But for every death, injustice, loss, and failure you are bound to endure, there is also birth, love, growth, and success waiting for you.

So, chin up, because there’s so much heartbreak ahead of you.