Self Reflection

A Letter to My Future Self

Dear Me, 

Lately, our world’s been going through a lot. As I’ve been inside, mostly in solitude, I’ve done a lot of reflecting, and I’ve realized all of the little things I have taken for granted. So, if you’re reading this and you're able to be around others and roam freely, don’t forget when you couldn’t…

I hope that you’ve made friends with the reflection staring back at you. I hope that you’ve learned to be kind to yourself and have some compassion for where you are at this point in life. Most of all, I hope that you’ve learned to stop thinking, and release all of your thoughts. I hope you’ve learned to live in the moment, even just for a minute. 

A minute, so easily taken for granted. You see, you tend to think that tomorrow is promised but in reality, nobody owes you another breath. Nor does anybody owe another smile, another laugh, another step. You aren’t promised anything but this exact moment in time. And by all means, please, take advantage of that moment. Spend it working towards your goals, spending time with those you love, and learning what impact you want to make. Work towards the future, and stop dwelling on the past. You are so much more than one memory. 

Memories, I hope that you’ve made plenty. I hope that you’ve met some great people and left all the toxic ones. You tend to gravitate towards people who alter the way that you act, and I hope that you’ve learned to be authentically yourself. Along with that, I hope that you’ve stopped caring about people's irrelevant opinions about you. I hope that you’ve stopped longing for others' approval of who you are. I hope that you finally approve of yourself and accept all of your flaws and quirks. I know that this all seems so unrealistic, especially now. But maybe, me in the future, you have realized that these goals and hopes are in reach, and that they are possible. 

I genuinely want you to figure out what you care about and who you are as a person. To do this you need to stop being so afraid of speaking up for what you believe in. Stop being so scared to show what you care about. Stop being scared to show your creative expression, whether it be art, writing, or anything else. 

This one hits home right now: stop being scared to show your face. Whether this is taken literally, how it's intended, or metaphorically. You’ve always been a shy girl, scared of social interaction because of others' judgment.

Stop being so ashamed of who you are because I promise that you have absolutely no reason to be. You were created to be who you are now and then. Never was there a mistake, just a lesson, a “happy accident.” -Bob Ross

You tend to look at your mistakes like defining moments. But in reality, those mistakes are the same ones that led you to who you are today. And right now, you are so very far from perfect. I hate to break it to you, but nobody is, and you will never be. That’s 100% okay… but if I know myself the slightest, I’ll still be discouraged by “remember that one time you…”

At the end of the day, you’re a glass-half-empty type of person, always so negative. The type that only sees what’s gone wrong. Because of this, you don’t realize how much you’ve accomplished until it’s recognized, specifically by others. I hope that you’ve learned to appreciate yourself before being handed a medal for it. Because in the end, the trials and errors, tears, and sweat, are your prizes. Those are the signs that you’re getting somewhere and you’re trying. You’re pushing yourself, not staying stagnant. So push yourself, remove yourself from your comfort space. That is how you will improve. 

Improve, just try. My biggest aspiration for myself is just to be a good human, one who really lives and is truly themselves. One who looks their fears in the eyes and doesn’t give them a second thought. The type of person who lives by their core values and beliefs. The type of person that you want your little brother to look up to.  

I can start this today, and I’ll share this piece with those I love. Participate more in class. Give myself breaks and moments alone to do absolutely nothing. Ultimately, breathe through the stress and keep working towards my goals. 

I hope that me in the future will smile at this letter and remember how far I’ve come.

—You from the past

Write your own letter using this template!

Letter to Self

Dear Alex,

If you ever read this future self, I hope that person you have become is someone who is able to live freely and with the mentality that you can be yourself. Inherently life has always been strange. You may have felt like you've gone through the worst experiences of belittling words being shot towards you from time to time. You tried to get those words to just go right through you instead of impaling you and your self-esteem but it is clear that regardless of them going through you or not it will still leave a wound. Wounds that have the chance of completely hijacking your mind and mentality, creating a new personality. Though at the time of writing this I am not in a place I would like to be, I am wishing upon stars and beyond that, you will be able to grow into a person that you are happy to be with fewer insecurities and less sensitivity. 

Sincerely,

Past You

The Complexity of Family

Family. A complex topic for some and a fairly simple topic for others. Why is that? Well, I think there is a pretty straightforward answer to that...everyone’s family is different. Whether that be the situations that you experience with your family or that your definition of family is different. 

For years, I was someone who struggled with figuring out my definition of family. Was I supposed to call every person that I, just so happened, to be blood-related to family, even if we had no relationship or if there was a huge strain in our relationship? Was I allowed to consider friends to be my family? What if I thought of someone as a family but we didn’t have the same definition, how would I handle that?

Because I spent so much time filled with doubt about what family meant to me, I would later lose so much time with who I figured out was actually my family. 

I took my family for granted, and because of that, I believe that no matter what you think a family is, never take anyone for granted because they just might be that family you were looking for all along. 

A common theme that I tend to see with people who express hesitancy toward letting people in, is forgiveness and trust. Trust me, I would know. 

There was a point in my life where I accepted everyone with open arms and considered everyone to be my family. As time went on, more and more of those same people would leave me, constantly lie to me, or worse. I kept forgiving them over and over, just wanting to be able to have that picture-perfect family no matter what. Eventually, it was too much for me, and my trust issues started to skyrocket when it came to the idea of letting people get to know the real me.

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I went through this slump for a while and lost a lot of time that I could have been spending with the people I love, whether I considered them family or not. Fortunately, I realized that I was going about life all types of wrong and ultimately decided to live in the moment more.

If people were going to let me down then I would have to deal with it. That is just how life is, and no matter what, no one should try to protect themselves from these experiences by shutting the rest of the world out. You think it will make it all better, but in reality, it’ll do the complete opposite.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I am still in this mentality. I do not regret making this decision at all, what I regret most is thinking that I would be able to thrive successfully in this world with the mindset I had before. As I said earlier, the outcome of isolating myself was very contradictory to what my ideal outcome would have been. Had I continued to disconnect from everyone and everything else, without a doubt, the state of my mental health would be ten times worse than it is now. 

But as many have said before, no good deed goes unpunished. Even though I started to let myself be me and let people in again, I still suffer the consequences of shutting them out for so long. 

In just these past two years, so many of my family members that I was just starting to get close to had unexpectedly passed. I spend every minute of everyday regretting taking them for granted because I feared that they would do what so many other people I considered “family” had done to me in the past. 

It isn’t a good feeling to have. It truly is heartbreaking to be reminded that all that time is gone and there is no getting it back. For me, it has made holidays very hard to handle. I want to be grateful for the people that I am surrounded with now but I can’t help but wish the family members who passed were there with me. You don’t want to ruin your whole day by dwelling on that but sometimes the thought of “I could have done more” overpowers any other thought. If I had just had the courage that I have now, years ago, I would have been able to have tons of wonderful memories with them. But, not everything is able to go the way you wish it would.

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It’s a lesson that I had to learn the hard way, but I hope that my story is able to encourage others to let go of the past and just look forward to the future. The future, which I promise has much more happy and auspicious moments that you will be able to look back at with joy.