Dear You,
There are many things I wish you would've known while you were growing up — it probably would have made things a lot easier on you. I wish you would have known that, although at the time it didn't seem like it, middle school was going to end and it would not have mattered what friends you lost or who picked on you. I wish you would have known that regardless of what anyone said or thought, you were (and are) beautiful. Inside and out. You had a good head on your shoulders, a charisma that made people smile, and a kind heart. Somewhere along the line, people made you believe that you had none of those things.
People mistreated you and stepped on you; maybe without even knowing. This would come to cause some problems for you in the future. I wish you would have known that the person who commented on your YouTube videos saying you were ugly and not talented was totally wrong and would become super insignificant in your life anyway. I wish you would have known that the someone telling you "You'd probably be prettier if you lost like just a few more pounds," was completely cruel and just plain inconsiderate. I wish someone would have told you to just brush those comments off and remember your worth, and if they did, I wish you would have listened.
I really wish you would've realized that changing or making accommodations for a boy was never the way to go. That someone would eventually come along that would appreciate you for exactly the way you were. I wish you wouldn't have spent so much time obsessing on why no one liked you and would've realized that in searching for love in boys, you forgot how to search for love within yourself.
I wish someone would've stressed to you that a huge majority of your happiness in life is how you feel about yourself. I wish someone would've told you that you were worth so much more than how you began to view yourself. You weren't ugly. You weren't stupid. You weren't hated. You didn't have an awful personality. You were unique. You were special and you were you.
I wish you would've known that you had everything inside you all along to make your goals and dreams come true (and you did). I wish you would've not been a defeatist and actually known that you could really do anything you set your mind to. I wish you would have realized that being negative would come to get you nowhere and that things would always work out OK in the end.
I wish you would've been confident in everything about yourself — so much that it would make people look up to you. I wish you wouldn't have acted like a victim for so long. I wish you would have seen how talented, funny, and interesting you were and I wish you wouldn't have let other people's differing opinions faze you or bring you down.
Mostly, I wish you would have been kinder to yourself. But now that we are here together in 2016, I see pieces of you pop up from time to time, whispering mean things to yourself. I hope you know that we are working hard together to become the best version of us we can be. I know that you realize now that you're a fantastic person and that all of things you've been/went/are going through don't define you. I know we both realize that self-love is a long, tough battle but that we're getting through it together. I hope you now know that we don't have to wait anymore to love ourself; we don't have to wait until we do a certain thing, or lose 10 pounds, or dye our hair—we can love ourself right now because there is absolutely no reason that we shouldn't.
