You felt so small, so insignificant, so powerless – and me, I was merciless. I gave you no credit for the time you took to heal. But what you didn’t see – your story was no different than the rest. You made sacrifices – to yourself, to your friendships, to others – you gave up what it meant to be you to be liked, to feel powerful, to feel sexy – not knowing that you had it all inside of you all along.

Little girl you were no different than the rest. You followed trends – submerged yourself in passion projects, you kissed boys you shouldn’t and blamed yourself for things that weren’t your fault. So to the girl who was sad – who cried in front of the mirror, I will not apologize for refusing to pity you – but I will apologize for letting you hate you.

See the girl I used to be – is really just the girl I USED to become what I am today – and she was three things that inspired me

1. she was scared
2. she was strong
3. she was broken

and I couldn’t be more grateful because if I could say one thing to the girl I used to be I would say it like this and it would come in three parts

1. thank you for being scared – for worrying the world would hate your tears. for wondering if they would like you when you no longer had more muscle than the girl next to you. for being afraid to truly look at yourself in the mirror. Thank you for being so petrified that you wouldn’t be enough – because when the fear finally passed – when you finally learned to walk away from the dark rather than being scared of it – baby girl that is when you finally began to move on.
2. thank you for being strong – for having a brave face. For cracking jokes at the wrong time and for looking powerful people in the face when they treated you as lesser. Thank you for having the strength to say the wrong things – to be the odd man out, and to support people when no one else could. Thank you baby girl for being strong.
3. Thank you for being broken – for looking at your cracks like curves, for hating your rough edges and rounding their corners to make them beautiful again. Thank you for refusing to be whole – for splitting yourself across oceans and leaving parts of your heart in countries that helped you to heal. Thank you for being broken baby girl – because this woman wouldn’t have found her way back to being whole again without you.

There is a point in our lives where we realize that the person we were then – allowed us to rise to where we are today. And while I have written many a letter to the person I will be – to the person I have not become yet – what I needed to do was thank the girl I was. and maybe that is true for all of use because maybe like me, your story wasn’t as special as you thought it was, maybe you weren’t as broken as you thought you were, but it was real – all of it was real and no one can take that from you. So maybe instead of blaming you (the you that you were then) maybe you should thank yourself for what that person sacrificed to allow you to become the person you are today.

I am not always proud of the person I was – but the person I am today, well I’ll be damned if she isn’t working toward being the best version of herself.

Be proud of who you are – be proud of yourself baby girl – because one day [maybe today] you will look back and realize how truly amazing you are.