To My Other Self,

When others are not looking, you are quiet and sometimes prefer to be alone. Though you consider yourself to be an extrovert, willing to make friends with anyone, I know that many times you would like to get away from it all. You have gone through a lot in your life, and you have seen many things that have changed you. Do not take these things lightly. While some heartbreak and sadness have helped you grow in strength and courage, they have also made you very vulnerable to the world.

They have left you with a hole sometimes and with an empty space that only you can understand. None of these things have broken you, however. Just because your smile is not always full and your cheer is not always present does not mean you are incomplete. Life is not about easy days and endless happiness. Life is about just that, life. It is not always easy, it is not always joyful. It can lead to heartache and disappointment, good friends and bad, and endless battles that you must fight. My other self, you must understand that you are not the lesser half.

Many people will tell you that you need to always be your “best self” which typically translates to your most happy self. Other people will always prefer you be the exact model of what they desire of you. When you are alone, they want you to be with someone; when you are distant they want you to be social; when you are silent, they want you to speak. People who do not understand your silence, however, will never understand your words, as Elbert Hubbert once said. Sometimes, one’s other self is misunderstood because it is simply the other half of you. It is not understood because we do not wish it to be. It is the self we tend to hide in fear of it being wrong or misconceived.

My other self is introverted, quiet, and quick to temper. While I sometimes wish it did not exist, that I was able to be unmoved by what life has thrown at me, I understand that it is apart of who I am. Because I am able to be quiet, I am able to have a voice. Because I am often weak, I am strong. Because my heart is heavy with pain, it knows the greatest of pleasure and joy. While this is not the self that I choose to associate myself with, it is the self that has seen me grow and has kept me grounded.

So, to my other self, do not think you are the lesser of me. Do not grow weary in your existence and try to hide. Rather, I hope you can continue to allow me to stay grounded, to be more than just a happy face. Thank you for your existence, for making me whole, for teaching me that life is not always simple, that there will always be two sides to every story. You have made me soft to this hard world. You are not the lesser of me, but rather the side that I have grown proud to acknowledge the existence of. I am human, I am unsure, I am tainted, but I am whole.