Let’s face it, we all have a past and our lives are messy but I’m writing to the girls that feel like their past is a little too messy and that makes it that much harder to build deep relationships with people...especially guys.

I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s hard for me to open up to anyone for that matter. Vulnerability has been the hardest obstacle for me to overcome in life and I find myself retreating back into my shell more days than not. Especially with college being so new and having to meet so many people, I often get very surface level with most people.

Vulnerability is hard because my life has been far from perfect. I feel like a lot of people around me come from very out together families and haven’t really faced a lot of hardships in life. They haven’t had those moments that really shake their lives or hit them to the core.

It’s hard because I’ve had a few of those moments. From dealing with the repercussions on my parents divorce, having a front row seat to experience a lot of loss in a short amount of time, the list goes on. As a result, there are a whole lot of layers to me that only a few people get to see. The complexities of my personality and the way that I live my life are deep and layered but beautiful and worth it if you stick around!

If you’ve ever experienced any amount of hardship in life you’d know that sometimes it’s hard to keep moving forward. I mean this in the sense that it’s really easy to look backwards and wish you had changed the outcome. The hardest part is accepting you’ve gone through the hardship and dealing with its repercussions. It’s all just apart of life. Some of us get a lot of it and some of us don’t get a lot of it at all but God gives you only what you can handle so I guess it just shows that some of us are a little stronger than others.

As a result, it makes it a lot harder to open up, especially with guys. You want to come to him, or anyone for that matter, as someone that is well put together and like you’ve got your life put together to some capacity. And yeah, maybe we have our lives together on the outside, our past creeps in and reminds us of where we’ve been! Sometimes it’s hard to talk about what we’ve walked through to get to where we are now and most people don’t understand why it’s so hard to explain.

BUT my past reminds me of where we I’ve come from and the strength I’ve had to muster up to get to the other side. The countless nights I’ve spent on my knees in prayer asking for guidance and more strength to get me to the next day. But in today’s society, strength is not the first thing guys look for in a girl. Most guys look for someone that they can control and that will submit to them. But see, I want to be different and show off my strength because some days literally Jesus and the strength he’s given me is all that I’ve got.

I don’t say all of this to get a reaction or be pitied but to tell others that they’re not alone and it’s okay. There’s something beautiful about a messy life because it shows strength and courage. It’s okay because your maturity level shows and you’re wiser as a result of the hardships.