Dear Me,
(If I could write a letter to me… oh wait—you’re too young to know that Brad Paisley song. Never mind.)

Yes, you.
The girl who doesn’t think she looks good enough, sings well enough (even though, spoiler alert—you’ve got pipes), is too loud, too soft, too awkward, too everything.

This one’s for you.

Life’s gonna be hard.
And I don’t mean like algebra hard. I mean chewing-a-jawbreaker-while-stepping-on-a-Lego-in-the-dark kind of hard.
Like “how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” hard—spoiler: you never find out because you will bite it.

You, my friend, are a mix between Bugs Bunny and a tea kettle. You’ll smile through absolute chaos, then suddenly pop your top, shriek “THIS IS NOT FAIR,” and stomp around like Yosemite Sam with steam coming out your ears—and honestly? That’s part of your charm.

You’ll feel like a lumpy chunk of coal, but guess what? Even lumpy coal turns into diamonds… eventually… after pressure, fire, and a few nervous breakdowns in the Taco Bell parking lot.

Your running? Still terrible. Truly. You run like a Galápagos turtle doing its taxes. But you do it anyway. And that counts for something.

In your 30s, girl—you start to thrive.
You go back to school (who knew brain cells could regenerate?), you write books, and you become a mom your daughter actually brags about. Yes, she’ll sass you. But she’ll also quote you like a tiny guru in sneakers.

And you know that voice you always worried was too loud?
Turns out, it’s exactly the right volume.
Because people need to hear it.
You’ll use that voice to speak up for grieving parents, for mothers with empty arms, for those wrestling with infertility and invisible grief. You’ll become a voice for the broken-hearted—and girl, you’ll carry it with grit and grace.

Now I won’t sugarcoat it:
You lose people you love.
You bury your son and your best friend in the same year.
You get fired for the first time in your life.
And yes, you do that “uphill both ways in the snow barefoot” thing… metaphorically… and occasionally literally because you forget to wear real shoes.

But you keep going.
You grieve. You break.
You rise like a dusty little phoenix with coffee breath and Walmart mascara. You wear your warrior scars with style.

And you don’t let it steal your joy.
You still laugh.
You still dance in the kitchen.
You still sing—not just loud and proud, but beautifully, boldly, and with purpose.

You’ll remember the warmth of the sun on your skin as you jumped on the trampoline, belting “Soak Up the Sun” like you were the headliner at your own backyard concert. (You were.)

So don’t rush it.
Let time do its weird little thing.
Let them laugh—because spoiler alert: they don’t matter anyway.

And you? You matter so, so much.
Even when you feel like you don’t.

With love,
The girl who still can’t run,
but finally knows her voice was her superpower all along.
– M.