Dear Self,

Here, we meet again. Here we meet where you are in such a different place mentally,physically, & spiritually than you were even a year ago. 2024 was the year where your ability to be a writer and photographer was tested the most! You overcame so much self doubt that you are mor confident going into the next chapter of your life. You faced changes that were good and changes that were not as good, but you came out on the other side.Thank goodness for those changes! You have learned that instead of looking at the world as a series of mistakes you have made, you were reminded by your “chosen sister” that you are just having lessons! Her love and support have made you into a better person simply because she sees what at times you do not see, yet. I stress the word “yet.” The weight that lifted off your shoulders of carrying the weight of what you were programmed to see as mistakes with the penalty of punishments is no longer apart of your mindset. You have detoxed that mentality out of your system and You have actively changed your mindset. The woman you were eight years ago was insecure, sad, & desperate to get out of a toxic marriage that did not align with your future. You were scared to leave. You were even more terrified to shake up the life you knew. The abusive dynamics you had become accustomed to believe you deserved to survive are now just whispers of your former life! You are no longer the woman who thinks you deserve to be punished and this is just how it is for you. Now, when you look back at how scared you were back then another challenge to embrace who you are growing into comes to a head, again. You have another life choice to make and the previous one of ending an abusive-toxic marriage gave you the skills you need in order to make this decision. This challenge seems a little less scary. You have learned what you will not tolerate for your life. You have learned to embrace what you do in fact want for you. Now, you are more confident in yourself that you have the skills to pick yourself up and start a new business endeavor to move forward with and the best part is that you are not fearful. You are elated! Life is a series of lessons learned or lessons revisited. Kid, this time not only do you know what to do. You know how you’re going to do this and move along while moving forward to your most successful chapter yet! Only you can hold yourself back and why would you ever want to be held back ever again? This is another choice in order to move forward on your own terms and the lessons you have learned are what will make your life moving forward even better than you can ever imagine! After all, life is a series of lessons not mistakes! Now, go get ‘em!

With Love,
Sarah

Dedicated to my chosen sister, Karen

When I first became aware of the importance of you, I was an adult who had been put through so much trauma that I mourned the loss of your innocence. I sat in my grieving with you for much longer than I should have. I pretended I was fine. I pretended we were fine. We were not fine. Not fine in any way! I pretended that the pain that would encompass most of your childhood and young adulthood just was not that bad. In realty, it was not great! In reality it was abusive and toxic! I did not want to face the layers of traumas. The pain was just too intense! I just couldn’t stand seeing how much you had been hurt until I faced those layers of pain as an adult. I put off facing the layers of pain for far too long. Then when I began to face it, I got accused for many years of just not letting go of my past. I would get yelled at by my mother for just not letting it go! The truth was she did not want to face what had happened to me either. Then she would have to do some inner work. That is her journey. For me, the truth was that I had to chip away layer after layer in order to free and heal myself from the confines of my childhood. I spent eight years actively healing the traumas that had happened from the time I was nine years old until I was thirty-six when I had blown up my abusive marriage with divorce! The explosion of my marriage was my way of setting myself free from all of the abusive narratives I refused to accept any longer! Oh how I am proud of myself for that disruption to my timeline! I did not want to repeat the patterns that had led me to the fact I had survived many layers of abuse as a child and as an adult because I thought that was my fate! Oh how I want to go back and hug the thirty-six year old version of myself. I will get there, but first I had to love on the little girl who I look at each day in a Polaroid photo that feels as the perfect reminder of how precious time can be when we look backwards or forwards. Looking at that little girl in that Polaroid photo held my motivation to stay on my journey of insisting that I had to heal as my guiding force. I also needed to look at this photo to Remind me that I refused for my children to have to survive the unhealed parts of their mother on their own journey from childhood through adulthood. I demanded better for them! I demand better for myself!

Now, I work a little harder every day to heal what had been done to you. What had been done to us. I keep a picture of you at the age of eight at my desk to remind myself every single day that, you are loved. I tell the younger version of myself each day, “I love you.” I actively have changed the way I look at myself as an adult, because I have learned to love the younger version of myself. Now, I count the blessings that helped me to survive the abusive nature of my childhood. I focus on the people who helped me to be a better version of myself. I focus on the people who loved me when I could not love myself. They saw that I was more than the circumstances of my childhood which would bleed into my young adulthood. I look at that picture of myself at eight years every single day to remind me that I am still amazing with a world ahead of me! I no longer grieve the loss of her. I embrace her with all the good and all the bad! I am not defined nor am I broken, but all those experiences I have navigated through.Now, I look at the possibilities ahead of me! Those experiences made an impact that I carry each day as a reminder of how far we have come. My younger self and who I am now match one another. I look at how far we have healed and some of the work I still have to do on my path to further my healing. This daily reminder interlaced within one Polaroid photo has helped me to reignite the pain that I had stuffed down for so long. I had to look back and face the pain in order to make sense out of it, so I could move forward and not inflict that pain onto anyone else. I needed to learn to love myself! I needed to learn to empower myself!

Looking back is not always a bad thing. It just is a way if used with a healing intention a way to simply heal what had been hurt with myself. I cannot speak for anyone else’s journey, but for my own. I love that vivacious energy I had as a child! Those endless imaginative ways I saw the possibilities of world was inspiring to others, but most of all to the older version of myself! I just wouldn’t realize it until I became an adult and faced it. I have done the work. I have looked at each nook and cranny of my past. All I see now is a girl who needs more hugs, more reassurances that she on a better path that I can now give to myself. I no longer look outside of myself to know I am lovable! I tell myself every single day that I am worthy of love! So, as I look at the photo of the younger version of myself as I write this I am reminded that, I love how beautiful you looked in your sun dress and that you had a smile that you see in your son! I love that your eyes sparkle like your daughter! I simply love that you are apart of me! As I look at that Polaroid photo I see your energy was not taken advantage of then and you had endless ways to show off your silliness! I needed the daily reminder that as an adult now, I am amazed with you and how you hard you held the innocence of all that encompasses you! I hold that so close to my heart for us. Every day I look at that picture where you are smiling and full of joy and I see my kids! I see the love and security I poured into them so they did not have to suffer the way you would a few years after that photo was taken. Sarah Jayne, I love you with all of my heart!

Not all changes in your life will seem like a good thing until you gain some clarity. Some life changes will alter you in unexpected ways where you feel that you will never recover and that its life shattering revelations seem to define you in unexpected ways. You can’t see the future into the unknowns where you confidently know the events unraveling would actually change your life for the better. At the time you feel like you will never recover. Your so deep into trying to process the unfolding series of revelations you can’t see how these moments and challenges are setting you up for success! The challenges with accepting or embracing the changing moments coming at you can seem life shattering! They simply don’t seem as a necessary purging of old habits or crutches you counted on in order to make you feel comfortable in your circumstances. You should grieve the loss of what could have been. You should I process and embrace the waves or tsunamis of feelings that catch you fully by surprise!

For me, the day I found out I was pregnant with my daughter at the age of 21 was one of those moments where life changed me for the better! I had this preconceived theory that I would I never be a mom. In fact, I had already aligned myself into believing that being a mom, for me would be toxic for any child. I didn’t have a healthy role model in my own mother that made me want to be a mom. Some events that happen to us are seared into our brains where after many years, you still remember exactly where you were, what you were wearing, and weird details that you just cannot shake off! February 2nd, 2002, I was having a heated argument with a family member who was eating in front of me and I felt a wave of nausea that hit me in a way I had never experienced before. I was also late. I was in denial that the first test was accurate and after buying so many pregnancy tests to confirm that I was indeed pregnant, I still didn’t tell anyone. Those two lines on each test confines my worst fear, I was pregnant! I had been on the pill and we actively used condoms.

When I really started to tell people what was happening they all seemed to know I had been carrying a baby and yet said nothing. Later, I would discover that they knew because I was puking all of the time and looked different. I felt different but did not realize anyone else could see that about me. At the time, I thought I had truly kept my secret hidden. Now, that seems laughable to me. It’s funny how time and distance changes your perspectives. At the time I simply couldn’t see past my uncertainties and insecurities of becoming a mom.

Rather than continue to be the kind of mom who made the world revolve around me, I decide to go on a different path. Instead of wallowing in my insecurities at the impending lifelong responsibilites, I focused on breaking generational curses within my family’s construct to being the best mom a little girl never asked for. I felt this increasing anxiety that my daughter would hate me and would discover I was a mother fraud. That she would instantly know I was never meant to be a mom. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, we grew up together. I learned how to be a mom and she was the best teacher I have ever had the honor of learning from. The day my beautiful daughter was born I instantly fell in love with this tiny human who I haven’t been able to stop staring at for the last 21 years of my life. I remember staring at her nonstop for the first few weeks. That was when being in awe of her began. Her being 21 has been a full circle moment where I see that I was absolutely over time was meant to be her mom. I still stare at this beautiful young woman who is still teaching me how to be a better mom all the time! She is the best of me. She is the best of herself. Though my marriage to her father ended that only made our bond as mother and daughter even stronger. She is most marvelous thing I have ever had the honor to create with the exception of her brother Who is also amazing! I am honored that she chose me to nurture her from a baby to an adult. I am so honored that I was chosen to be her mom!

We have the opportunity to face challenges and events that change us into something that can majorly transform our lives for the better if only at times we get out of our own way. Although becoming pregnant when I was just a baby adult that time in my life seemed overwhelmingly daunting at the time! Time, distance, and perspective have led me to embrace that I wouldn’t change the events that brought me to being a part of her life! Having my daughter is the best time thing with the exception of her baby brother that completely changed my life for the better! I am an absolutely better person for becoming a mom to these two loves of my life!

For years, I have chosen everyone else first
I allowed myself to not even be on my own list of priorities
I did not think I deserved to recognize on my own time with deserving the merits of love for myself
I had everyone categorized in my mind as more important than me
I was determined to not be a nuisance or cause anyone discomfort

2020 changed me as it did others

2020 made me aware of the importance of self stillness
2021 taught me that I do not need to live up to others timelines, my own is important
2022 woke up my internal clock of no longer delaying my own growth
2023 broke me of any self doubt that was leftover of 2022 and set my path on fire
2024 is the year I choose Me

I choose to make myself a top priority on my own list
I choose to make sure I know my worth and my value even when others question me
I choose to be uncomfortable with not taking care of everyone else, first
I choose making sure I know I am allowed to love myself honestly and fully
I choose living up to my own expectations and I am looking forward to how this adventure unwinds over this year

2024 is the year I choose me

She

She no longer respected herself
She let others discard her
She let others opinions matter more to her than her own
She let the opinions of others chip away at her until she longer recognized herself
She realized she had given away her respect over & over again
She masked self-inflicted jokes against herself to deflect her own inner tension building
She welcomed others to portray her in ways that were unauthentic to who she really was
She lost her ability to fight for her own self respect

She knew deep down inside of her something didn’t feel quite right
She knew that deserved better from others
She knew she needed to demand for better for herself
She knew that it was time to strip away all of her insecurities and get to her inner most raw self

She knew what she had to do, but she was scared
She was ready, but she made excuses because her fear was intensifying!
She requested at first that her self respect be a priority
She was denied, again & again
She then demanded she be heard
She again was denied & this time with a threat thrown down at her!
She felt she had been muted by others & the pain she felt became unexpected

She felt a burning sensation start to grow within herself
She could no longer be quiet about her needs & her desires
She felt her whole world explode in one moment
She set fire to the accelerant that was her own broken self
She then put out the fire and knew it was time to rebuild

She knew she had lessons she had to learned here, or she would be doomed to repeat them
She decided to learn a new way to conduct herself
She felt something different in the way she saw everyone and everything around her
She started to change
She started to sprout
She started to grow & grow until her roots became strong
She then bloomed into a new someone that the old someone would never recognize

She demanded respect and in fact invited that respect and uninvited anything beneath that
She only allowed respect for others to come from her
She only invited respect from others to come to her
She finally, understood what it meant to be deserving of the upmost respect
She finally, felt settled into herself

I am she.

Sarah Ludlum

Dear Younger Self,

Just a little note from your future self who has become wise in some ways through time and experiences… When we stay in our comfort zones we make a little cozy space to cocoon ourselves which can cause for us to never move forward. Sometimes, we find ourselves pushing past that comfort zone that elevates us into a newfound mental and physical place. Other times stepping outside out comfort zones are just an illusion of the mind. The stepping outside of my own comfort zone comes with that first leap forward. Oftentimes, I get so wrapped up into my own headspace that I struggle to move. I become so paralyzed with that first step forward that at times I need to be shoved face first into a new phase of life! If only I just leaped more often rather than just mentally decipher the pro’s and con’s of the possible scenario before me, I would save myself so much mental turmoil! It is that first leap that is far more intimidating than staying in the unsteady place of not moving forward or just moving at all in general. Adapting to ones own comfort zones also leaves little the complex uncertainty of leaping forward that professionals argue is healthy for us. I am still not so sure about that.

When I was 21 years old I had pre-determined that I would never be a mother. I had planned through birth control, safe sex, and at time abstinence to insure I would never become a mother. I was certain I would screw up any child that I could raise and that I would forever have regret about how much I would mess up my own child. I had just decided to never go there and that in no way would I ever become a mother. Life had a different set of plans and did not fill me in on the plan. This year the child I had pre-determined I would mess up turned 21 herself. She was meant to be here and if ever I could pinpoint an exact moment where I see how one action radically changed my life is the day I took 10 pregnancy tests that all turned positive! She is my birth control, condom miracle child! I just didn’t know I would be any good at raising her! Becoming a mom meant I would need to shed the pre-determined manner in which I would metamorphosis from being a single entity into becoming someone else’s mom! If I was going to do this job well it meant I would have to strip away the selfish layers I had decided when I was younger I was going to wear with pride. No more self agendas for my life anymore because as I was growing her I felt the connection I had never experienced with anyone else ever before! My daughter was meant to be here and looking back 21 years I can honestly express that I would not have changed the circumstances that forced me out of my cocoon of comfort into being a mom! In fact, I did not mess her up! I am proud to admit I was one-hundred percent wrong on that front! Becoming a mom changed me forever and while some moments where you step out of your comfort zone only have momentary alterations into our lives, for me, becoming her mom radically changed me inside and out for the last 21 years of my life. I am not the same person at all. I was no longer a “me” but a “we.” Even as she has become an adult, I am still tethered to an invisible line of connection between her and myself because I grew her and I grew up with her. I grew up because of her! I didn’t allow myself to even entertain the idea that I would stay the same while I was pregnant with her. I could feel the change happening as I made very choice to be a present mom. I allowed myself to become completely changed as a person, and even more so as a woman. Did I make some mistakes along the way of raising her? Of course I have! I have however, radically owned the mistakesI know I have made with her. I have taken those many mistakes as opportunities to grow and to learn more about myself! Sometimes, that first leap towards growth is the best one you will ever take and changes you in a way that you only see years after you have moved forward.

Warmest Regards,

Your Future Self

S. Ludlum