Friday, August 15, 2014

A letter to my 18 year old self


Dear 18 year self,

I am still trying to find the right words to appeal to you, to find a connection to you. A decade is yet to lapse and yet so many things have happened; so much has changed that I find it hard to recognize you. If you saw me today you probably won’t like me but may be, you would be proud of me.

First of all I want you to know I don’t hate you, you are a part of me, you are the reason I am who I am today. I have no regrets whatsoever for anything that happened up to the point I sat down to write this letter. You are a young brave woman who is torn between her past and her future, the confusion you are going through, the pain of not being able to let the world know, the pressure building up in you day after day is just temporary. Some day, it will be just a story, one that you can use to encourage others.

I know you swore to yourself that your 18th birthday will be your turning point; a time you will start a new chapter in your life and leave behind the old notorious you. You want to be what everybody thinks you are; in your own way you think it will make you a better person. May be it will transform you to the better. But what you don’t realize is you were not born to be like everyone else, you were born to stand out of the crowd and I wish you didn't try to fit in. My dear, life is too short to waste any amount of time wondering what other people think of you. What is important is not others opinion of you but your opinion to yourself.

I hate to see you wet your pillows with tears every night. I hate the pain you keep inside yourself. You have to find a way to let it out or it will destroy you. I know you have hit several rough patches in your life, we all do and this will not be the last, that is why you have to find a way get it out of your system. If you must know Pain is a part of human life and cannot be escaped. At times it will get worse and you will feel as though someone has stabbed your fresh wound over and over again, something I wish you could do without in your life. Well, the trick is to keep living one day at a time and eventually it gets pushed into the background of your life. And then one day you know you are okay, yeah may be it will still hurt but you will realize the details of the horrible past have begun to fade away.


Enjoy the power and beauty of your mind. You really have no idea how powerful and creative you can be. I don’t know why you admire people who are so inferior to you. You have a lot better and you could do so much more than what you think you have. I want you to find your own voice, to be what you really want to be. I want you to be the best you could ever be, because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it all and enjoy it. When you find your path, you should not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointments, defeat and despairs will come, but they are tools God uses to show us the way. Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone’s life, don’t let the noise of others drown out your inner voice; always have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Freedom; it is something you have been hoping to feel when you are 18. Do you feel it?? No you don't! To tell you the truth, you don't feel it  because you still don’t know what freedom is. My dear, freedom is not found in money like many people think, freedom is not in a piece of paper, it is not in the liberty to express your opinions or thoughts or believes like your civics teacher had taught you. Freedom is not even outside our prisons. Freedom begins with the decision to be what you really are. True freedom is found in righteousness. Until you understand this you will not know what freedom is. 

Love; I know you keep saying you can’t love a person and probably you will marry just because it is what the society expects of you. But do you know what I think?? I think you are scared of giving your heart to someone because you are scared of being hurt. Here is what I tell you, Expose yourself to your deepest fear, after that, fear has no power over you anymore and you are free. You will be cheated on, lied to and betrayed by those you love the most. Broken hearts are inevitable in the path to love and the only way of avoiding them is by deciding not to love at all. But it also means you will miss the joy of loving and being loved. It is like removing your own eyes not to see bad things that happen in this life.  When you find your prince you will be glad you endured all the pain to get to him, you will be capable of learning everything and knowing things you had never dared to even think because love is the key to understand all the mysteries.

In all this don’t expect anyone else to support you but yourself. All these people around you might be willing to support you but you never really know when either of them might run out. Trust me; you don’t need anyone else to bring a new kind of life light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to discover and make the best out of it. All you have to do is make a decision to be true to yourself. The only person fighting you at this moment is your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

Last but not least, memories are dangerous. They will pull you back to your past every time you try to escape it, and every time they will weigh heavier. Each day they will drag you down a little bit further. Find a way to make good memories and you won’t have to deal with the bad ones. Be careful with those who advice you but be patient with those who supply it.

By the way, do not miss use your beauty, not that you will understand but beauty is power, the same way money is, the same way a gun is. 20 years from now you will look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibilities laid before you, how fabulous you were but it will be too late.
Love you
me

P.S Don’t you worry about the future after all the real problems you will face are part of the things that never crossed your worried mind.




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