Dear Lindsey,
Life started off rough! And it will get a lot harder if you don’t follow this list. (You know how much we love lists!)
1. Remain unapologetic with who you are and what you like! (This is critical: many people will try to tell you what’s best for you, meanwhile, most of them cannot even tell you who they are.)
2. Your body is not the first thing you sell when you choose to embark on entrepreneurship. (Actually, don’t ever sell any of your body parts. Mentally and emotionally it is going to set you back like 15 years…..ugh)
3. Learn to love money. Not the paper itself, rather all of the cool stuff we can do with it. Travel, eat great food, buy great gifts, a beautiful home, help the less fortunate, and buy great clothes for you and your beautiful family.
4. Your parents and elders were not taught to heal themselves. Continue to show them compassion, without judgement.
5. Never tone it down. People won’t like you all the time, but as long as we can look ourselves in the mirror every night and feel good, that is all that counts.
6. Don’t judge yourself for the mistakes you make. (Players f*** up!)
7. The way other people treat you is not a reflection of you. The way you choose to respond is.
8. Love is forever your greatest asset. It won’t always feel like it but there will come a time when you’ll take pride in being the most loving person you know.
9. Never stop helping people. You’re doing the work that many people run from.
10. Dance!!! Twerk, jump, scrub the ground, be dramatic. This is the only exercise we like.
11. Never smoke, drink, or do drugs. It makes your breath stink and gives you wrinkles. (Plus, not to mention these things will kill so many people that you love.)
12. Your feelings always matter. If no one listens to them, remember that there is something so much more powerful, that is listening, and you will get everything you could have dreamed of.
This last one is the most important of all. If you don’t follow this one, it will cost you your life. Well obviously not, but you will lose your mind. Then you’ll have to spend an entire year in therapy, talking to a lot of different therapists because you are not easy to please.
Lucky number 13: Stay Alive! At all costs. Never give up on you because no one else has. The world is waiting for you to show them how to do it.

I hope this helps. You know what to do with it. Trust yourself and if you ever get lost, its fine. You will always find your way back.

With Love,

Dearest,

Before we begin, go to the candy store three blocks down your house, the one with the bright colors and fuschia sign, and order a mint chocolate fudge. Ask for the recipe too. It’s simply too good to not try it as early as possible in life. You’ll thank me later.

Now, I believe you have just begun high school. I’m sorry. I hope you’re happier than I remember being. I remember the deep loneliness, the alienation, the indecision plaguing your every thought, and the estrangement from your family. I hope I’m remembering wrong but I don’t see that as very likely. I hope there’s smaller bits of happiness in your life to keep you going.

It’ll be okay. Eventually, you do make friends, and good ones at that. Amazing ones. And when those leave, you’ll make new ones too, and some of the ones that left will come back later on. It’s a whole thing but I promise you that they will love you and you will be of worth to them.

You don’t need to spend so much of your time thinking you’re not lovable. I promise you, you are, to so many people. And most of all, to me. I know you and I love you (myself).

After all the drudgery of high school and stress and feeling so painfully lonely, you will experience some beautiful things. You will laugh and cry and laugh again. You will bake bread rolls with your mom. You will play Pokemon with your friends. You will even learn how to put down all those whirling thoughts in your brain down into ink and paper, and eventually, some people will find themselves seen within those words too.

It gets better. I know you think this might be corny and not at all helpful to you right now, and that it all seems so far away to you. And maybe from someone else, it might be. But this is me. This is you. I know you, I know the worst part of us but the best as well. Please believe that I mean this with all my heart and soul.

And now, I’d like to leave you off with three things I’d like you to do. (We both know the symbolism of the number three).

1. Pet your dog more often. Both for her sake and yours.
2. Some of the things that will bring you the most joy will also be embarrassing at the time. You will look like an absolute fool and it will be fine. I do not know anyone who has never known embarrassment and had a life worth living. Embarrassment means you put yourself out there, made yourself vulnerable, and anyone who mocks that is the bigger fool. Looking back, I cannot remember the names or faces of anyone who taunted me, but I can remember the feeling of joy when things worked out. So, compliment that girl, invite friends to play that dorky game, ask out the attractive person at the coffee shop, try out a new hobby. There are so many opportunities out there. Explore them without feeling burdened by embarrassment.
3. Remove the mask you wear once in a while. I won’t ask you to take it off entirely, it’s kept both of us safe for so long, and I don’t think we’ll ever be completely free of it, but it’s okay to remove it around the people you deem safe. Let yourself enjoy the moment and be yourself, no pretending, no distancing yourself from what happens. Feel it wholeheartedly and let those around you know it too. When you need to, put it back on, but never forget that the people you love deserve the chance to meet and know the real you. There is so much love out there and it’s only waiting for you to let it in.

I must bid you adieu now and depart back to my time. I know how stubborn we are, so you might not listen to me, but I sincerely hope you will. And just in case you don’t, please know that I won’t blame you. I know how scary everything felt back then but I promise to keep you safe until the sun once more shines on you and you can breathe freely.

Love,

Dear me, thank you.

I remember when you were starting school in third grade; transitioning from being home-schooled to public school, the same year that you bawled your eyes out because the doctor said needed eyeglasses. I mean, once you realized you were allowed to pick out your own frames, your tears cleared right up and those round, dark pink frames quickly became yours! Being excited about the new element added to your style, Dad didn’t have a hard time convincing you to get a super short haircut…but don’t worry, you never, ever did that again! However, I do admire the confidence that you had going into that school- knowing you didn’t have any familiar faces in class, but still having no problem being your authentic, weird self. I’m proud to say we do have that confidence today, but that unfortunately we did lose it a bit in-between.

Getting through middle school wasn’t bad. You did well in school and you got along with your classmates, but what you lived for was hanging out with your best friends back at the apartments that you grew up in your whole life. Having friends in the apartment complex made it easy to say that home was such a fun place to be, even though deep down you knew that inside that two-bedroom apartment, any happiness was gone after 6pm. You were lucky in a way, it’s not like your parents were leaving you with random sitters while they went out to the bars like your neighbor friends dealt with, instead your parents would just drink at home, and you had to be witness. Your parents seemed to care more than the other parents because they were always helicoptering around and trying to keep you safe, but that started to bother you more and more as you grew older.

When it was time for high school you started to feel suffocated. When you observed the younger neighbor friends having more freedom than you, it felt unfair! They could take their bikes to the store down the street before you could, and they’d all talk about their Facebook accounts while your parents were telling you that you couldn’t have one for another few years. The anger inside only grew as you finally got more freedom, because that only came with constant texts and calls asking for pictures to prove where you were. You weren’t out doing drugs or partying, you had good grades, but you were treated as if you were not trust-worthy or responsible. It didn’t help that your parents’ anxiety of the world worsened, as well as their anger towards each other. At home, you unfortunately had to hear all of it, and it had more of an effect on you than you knew.

As you overheard the loud, explicit sluts being spat back and forth, your body was coregulating with their anger and angst. As you overheard horrific truths of family pasts, your brain processed these things in an unhealthy, self-limiting way. As you started to join in on arguments trying to mediate or defend, you fed into your already developed control issues. There is a reason that psychologists tell parents not to involve their children in adult issues. This was in no way your fault, but when you finally were able to escape, you quickly learned that it was your responsibility. Although it feels easy to blame your parents for your anxiety and depression, it feels so much better once you realized that they were doing the best they could with what they knew, and it feels even better when you realized that you were the one in control of your life.

You escaped your parents’ home at age 19 and moved into an apartment with your high school sweetheart. Even though you had never had a boyfriend throughout high school, when you saw him come into your class junior year and you got that feeling that you had to talk to him…you were right to go with your gut. This man has been such a blessing throughout your life, even though at times you didn’t treat him that way. There were times where your anxiety got the best of you, your anger issues were not managed well, and you felt completely out of control. There were times where you found yourself in panic attacks, crying so hard to the point of headaches, but you made it through, and he was there the whole time. He was so patient with you, and although there were rough times during the relationship, he never left your side. Even though you thought you were such a burden and terrible person to be around, he never saw you like that-he saw you for you.

You had a hard time accepting this love for many reasons, but the main one being that you did not love yourself. Your brain absorbed Dad’s constant comments like “You dumba**” or “Stupid b**ch,” even though those were never true. You took on blame and guilt for things that didn’t even involve you, and it aided in the self-loathing patterns. I won’t sit here and say that at age 27 you’re completely healed of all traumas and you float through life with no problems; you still have triggers and definitely some control issues, but you are healing every day. After years of trying different medications and therapists, you’re feeling regulated without prescription drugs, you have a therapist you love, and you are finally feeling like that confident, curly-headed eight-year-old girl with glasses strolling into her first year of public school. Looking at you, I see that you always confidently knew yourself, and you trusted your gut. You tried to stay out of the way of chaos and remain in your own peaceful world, and that is something we still practice today. As I continue to heal my nervous system and work on self-love, I have realized that I truly can trust my gut feelings; and for that, I thank you.