a love letter

Happy Valentine’s Day

It is with a gentle kindness that I write this love letter; the acknowledgment that I have tried, that I have done the best that I could.

It is with great acceptance and forgiveness that I claim my story and own my tomorrow.

I am a survivor of loneliness; of feeling more pain than I thought I could bear, of heartache, and disappointment.

I am a survivor of a world that asks more of me than I have to give; of feeling exhausted and of failing without enough time in a day.

I am a survivor of denying my emotions; of saying I am fine, okay, but ask me again. I will break out in tears.

I am a victim of my self-deprecating narratives. A victim of the numbing coping mechanisms and self-inflictions, always leaving me worse off than before.

I am a survivor of letting things and people fall between my grasp, too afraid of my potential in catching them. Too fearful of my self-fulfilling prophecy that I would let them down.

I am struggling. I am overwhelmed by how much I have to navigate: insurance, housing, food, sleep, self-care, relationships, family, employment, taxes, rest, play, the list goes on.

I am imperfect. I am my own biggest obstacle, expecting to meet impossible standards that no single person will ever meet.

I am all of these things because I am human. And because I am human, I am stronger than I ever thought I would have to be.

I am stronger because of my journey; I can honor where it got me.

I am practicing loving myself. I am practicing having compassion for the hardest parts of this life and my reaction to them. I am practicing deciding who I want to be today, regardless of who I was yesterday.

I am practicing being gentle with my journey.

I recognize that I will have to make small consistent changes in how I show up for myself and the self-talk narratives in my head. I am reminding myself of my power to change. I am remembering the power in my self-fulling prophecy.

It is with that power that I write this love letter.

A letter filled with awareness for all I have been through. A letter to hold space for the emotions I have been brushing aside and for kindness in knowing I was only trying to survive.

A letter to remind me I am ready to thrive; to have curiosity for who I could become, without judgment or the definition of who I have been.

A letter calling me to love every version of me; calling me to bravely leap into my possibility and potential. A letter to motivate my journey as I work and work. As I continually practice the action of reaching for love.

This is my love letter.

Happy Valentine’s Day