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  • CONTEST ENTRY: Have faith in yourself

    Ciao 13 year old me,

    Here’s an update from 2021!

    We’ve been living in NYC for the past 6 years.
    We live with our partner, whom we love in a way we never thought we’d be cable of.
    We met him 4 years ago at a party we didn’t want to go to.
    Every time we feel the urgency of trusting our intuition, we must do so.
    Even when we’re too indecisive – which yes, we’re still very much so – please follow our gut. It’s what got us to New York, what made us grow in love and get where we are.
    Always trust yourself, your feelings, your abilities.
    We still have plenty of strength, but we did lose a bit of confidence along the way.
    The few times we didn’t listen to our gut, life made sure to slap us in the face.
    The roughest time was last summer.
    It might be hard to believe, but a deadly global pandemic has been decimating the population since the beginning of 2020.
    After 3 months of social isolation, we eventually escaped the City.
    We went to Ohio to take in some nature.
    One day, we went skateboarding in a park. After skating around, we reached a steep hill.
    We hesitated.
    Our gut told us to stop.
    But we wanted to impress our partner and ourselves.
    We are still very competitive and absurdly hard on ourselves.
    So we decided to bypass our intuition.
    We took a few steps down to quiet down the fear to then skate downhill.

    The first memories are very chaotic.
    We’re underwater. People are trying to talk to us from above, expecting us to respond.
    Do you remember how we used to try to talk and sing underwater?
    Same thing, only this time we are laying in a hospital bed.
    We hit our head pretty bad. We weren’t wearing a helmet.
    We were sedated after our brain had some internal bleeding and we subsequently had to bed put on a ventilator in the ICU. We were in the hospital for 5 days, than our partner took unconditional care of us at his parents’ house for a couple moths. It sounds absolutely horrifying, and it was, but don’t worry, we are going to be fine. But it’s still going to be the most challenging experience we lived so far.

    We spent 25 years worrying about not being enough, not doing enough and trying incessantly fill that void.
    After this accident, we are going to receive so much love.
    An overwhelming and humbling horde of love. Which is going to make us realize that our life mattered so much to so many people.
    So maybe we are enough.
    And you are.
    You are enough.
    You are more than enough.

    Eventually, our body is going to recuperate impressively fast. Which is going to be as encouraging as overwhelming, because all other cognitive symptoms caused by this brain injury – as well as our mental health – are going to take a very long time to recover. As the more apparent symptoms quiet down, people are going to inevitably move on, because the danger was escaped and we externally seem to be just fine. Unfortunately, this is going to make us feel extremely lonely and crazy.
    It’s almost like being a teenager all over again.
    Only this time it’s just in our head, I promise.
    We kept holding on to gratefulness and our partners’s love, who understand us and loves us like anybody else.

    Listen carefully though when I am telling you that we are not crazy.
    You are not crazy.
    We are a product of experiencing something absolutely crazy.

    We are still addicted to validation, now actually more than ever, can you believe it?
    We are constantly seeking for it. From everything and everyone.
    However, what we’ve learn from this experience, is that we need to learn to validate ourselves. We are still struggling at it, but we are trying.
    It took us to hit our head and not being around our family to be forced to learn how to take care of ourselves properly.
    Learning to love ourselves properly.
    Learning to prioritize ourselves.
    Properly.
    It’s hard. So hard.
    We are a long way down.
    But I can’t wait too see how worth it’s going to be.

    Please do me a favor.
    Keep doing whatever you’re doing.
    Just add a bit more of faith in yourself.
    Unapologetically. Authentically.
    Your family is going to test you on it.
    Schools are going to.
    New York is going to.
    This injury will.
    This is the biggest test that life keeps us having to take over and over again.

    I adore you.
    Thank you for getting us where we are today.
    I promise I am trying.
    You deserve it.
    And I want to believe I deserve it too.

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