Dear young Me,
If this letter were meant for a mere stranger, I would ask how you are and what has been happening in your life. But I know the answers to those questions; I still remember standing in your shoes and the prayers that stayed unanswered, or the days you spend tearing at your skin trying to stretch yourself open and peek inside to find any familiar goodness and light within yourself, hoping to rip it out to offer as a plea and use it to justify yourself to God and your family, that you were still the little girl they knew, full of bright, dopey smiles, loud singing, and never-ending chatter. And when your heart, which was unburdened before things went wrong, was bigger than your mind and rationality, it was willing to love, show kindness, and acceptance to those around you, even if they were a mere stranger brought into your life with a heart full of love and a mind of naive hope to connect with them .i remember how You clung to how those around you acted, dissecting their speech, their reactions, and even their smiles, trying to replicate them as your own. I remembered how you’d fear slipping up and revealing your true self—the quirky, messy, and sometimes gross interests that captivated you.how our mind would overflow with questions, leading us to express thoughts that didn’t make sense to others, and make them question whether we were just a person like them, or an alien wearing human skin who would one day dissect them to understand and find the answers to the questions that would plague their mind,

Years and Birthdays have passed, and now I’ve turned twenty-two, yes, you read that right we made it to our its funny how, lifes moves pretty fast believe it or not and the days of questioning every molecule that made us up as a person, seeing the bits of family members we could acknowledge and recognize within ourselves, and hating how we could see the destructive anger, the pain, and struggle we saw in those close to us and mourning how our future would end up and how it was inevitable if we were still so young and yet felt so much about the world and how it was shaping us and im sorry that i couldnt understand what was going on with us ut merely trying to blame everything on being merely childish with our sensitivity, Looking back, I wish i could tell you that all those times you felt like an outsider, like you weren’t enough just by being you—those feelings didn’t just disappear even. But eventually, we’ll discover people who resonate with us. You’ll notice those with quirky hairstyles that clash most beautifully, or the girl next to you who immerses herself in a book about an unusual topic, diligently marking her favorite passages. You’ll meet the wonderfully weird friends who fit into your life like puzzle pieces, all questioning the norms, thinking outside the box of ‘normalcy.’ These are the people you’ll come to recognize yourself in, and they will transform your world. The movies, books and films that will resonate a little too deeply and youll find a connection to people youe never met but know so many more other people are voicing how they feel how they view the world and the people around them in the most ground breaking ways, where one may see as a film created to unerve the the audience, youll see it more deeply, Imagine a pocket world where you’re not the only bitter or sour berry in the bunch. In this space, you’ll feel a wave of acceptance and understanding—not just from yourself, but from others as well. And you need to be with those people You’ll hold your head up high, knowing that even if people cannot fully understand you, it’s not your job to be performative like a jester for the world around you and never apologive for you being you, Your only purpose for the rest of your life now is to love and indulge yourself fully in the life that surrounds you. We only live once, and we may neve know if we will have the chance to grow old and reflect on the things we regret or the life we wasted by keeping ourselves packaged up, so younger me keep struggling, keep fighting because the world only gets more colorful down the dark tunnel your in at the moment, and the people who are on the otherside love you. But until then, be gentle with yourself. Growing up will feel like breaking at first, but you’re not. I promise you’re only growing,
P.S. I love you now and always.