To the Girl I Have Been,

Here you are again, sitting around and waiting for the first exciting thing to happen this year...just like you do every January.

Just waiting for the first good thing to happen, the first thing that will make you smile from your head to your toes for a solid hour. Just a little something that will make you feel as if you have gotten your year off to a good start.

Or waiting for the first terrible, horrible thing to give you a clear omen of the dangers that loom ahead in the next 12 months.

Let me start this letter by telling you that you aren't wrong to want good things to happen in the new year. You do deserve them, even when you start to feel that you can't possibly deserve anything good in life. Don't deny it, you know there have been days that made you feel like the most unworthy, disgusting scum of the earth.

It's not true, even when it feels like it.

If I can be brutally honest with you, life has dealt you a generally good hand. Sure, some days felt like absolute hell, but those were only sporadic days. All in all, you've been extremely blessed. Trust me, it could be so much worse.

Sure, you've dealt with sadness, even short bouts of depression, but you've always come out of them. You've always found a reason to smile again because you have an amazing base of support that knows when you're not feeling all there. You've been blessed with a group of people that know when and how to tell you it's time to get up, shower, and finally leave the house and "go be social".

Sure, you've dealt with a lot of hate for yourself, but you've always reconciled with yourself for the nasty things you've told yourself. There have been painful days, days that you wanted to crawl out of your skin and just find a better place to be. Just remember that you have always found the strength within yourself to remember that God made the body you have decided to hate, the body that you have decided is disgusting and unworthy of proper care. You've always been enough and you've always found a way to remind yourself of that truth.

Of course, there have been days that life has dragged you through the mud.

Some days, you swerve left and life hits you with a semi-truck full of reality. That's just how it goes, and it's never stopped you from following your dreams.

Feeling uncomfortable with yourself has never stopped you from carrying on with your life, taking care of the things that you know will make you feel better. Being rejected from opportunities you had hoped and prayed for never stopped you from trying again.

Hearing the acid words of rejection, the "you aren't good enough for this", has never stopped you from adding that extra "yet" under your breath.

You may not be good enough...yet.

That doesn't mean you will never be "good enough" for other people. If I can continue to be brutally honest, there are people out there that may never think you are "good enough" for them.

Forget about those people. You don't exist to please everyone, you never have, because it is an impossible task that will eventually kill you if you take it on.

It's never worth losing yourself to please others.

So, as you progress into 2019, I want to leave you with a simple reminder that you are stronger than the negatives that manifest in the coming year and every year to follow. We have always been stronger than the negatives that life has thrown at you.

Nothing has ever stopped you from doing the things that you truly enjoy. You were the little girl that threw a trash bag over the cast on her arm so she could ago swimming, you were the brave teenager that took a chance with several crushes and still showed up with a smile after each rejection, and you continue to be the young woman that puts her writing on the line, her "babies", so that they can flourish at some point the future.

No matter what realities life throws in that semi-truck and no matter its speed as it's hurtling toward you, you've always been able to pick up the pieces because you are just too stubborn to hear the word "no" when you want something badly enough.

My final wish for you is that you never let anybody change that about you. Remain as resilient as you have always been through every broken bone, shattered toenail, self-degrading thought, and heartbreak that life has sent your way.

That is who you are, that is who I am, and that is who we want to be for the rest of our blessed life.

Sincerely,

The Girl That You Are