Melanie: A Letter to your 20 something self
By
I was so happy when I received this letter full of don’ts. Many don’ts that I need to be reminded of. Loving yourself is a hard thing when you are young. In reality, I think that loving yourself is just hard.
To anyone of you who have emailed me a letter in the past week I apologize if I have not yet responded. I started summer classes this week and have been working on my new house. I will get back to you as soon as I can and all of your letter will be posted.
Hope you had a happy weekend.
Now grab your cup of coffee and enjoy this letter from Melanie.
Dear 20-year-old me,
Don’t sleep with that guy. Or the other one. You are only making
yourself feel worse, and you are better than that. Go see a new
therapist. Keep seeing them until you really start working things
out. You don’t deserve to hate yourself like that, and you will
eventually discover that you are actually pretty cool.
The pants have to go – you have a great body and the 50” leg openings are not doing
anything for you. Wear more dresses, they do still make you happy
even if you are not as thin as high school! And take more pictures of
yourself. You will wish there were hundreds when you are older and
fatter and your memory starts to go.
Finish school now – yeah, it’s hard, but you will have so much fun, and you will thank me later.
Good job on finding that man, though. And on the baby. You are an awesome mom
and he is a wonderful husband.
Don’t stop writing poetry. It’s so hard to start again and you have
talent, and you will miss it later on.
This is such a negative letter, all these “don’t”s. But you know
what? You won’t listen and you will still turn out okay. You will be
happier and healthier and all that crap you are going through will
make you so much stronger. So what if it takes you years to get it
all together? Stop being so hard on yourself. You are okay, you are
beautiful, you are stronger than you think. You will be fine and you
will look back and realize that it all happened for a reason. So,
good job, honey. You are doing what you need to do in order to become
me. Thanks.
Melanie
Related posts:
Just yesterday I was talking to my BFF about looks. Both of us are in our early twenties and it is rediculous how self-concious we are of our bodies. I am very upset with what has made us feel this way… watching MTV in middle school sure did not help. But I told her (and myself)that what is externally beautiful in this country is the skinny, young, whatever, whatever. And just by our age alone… we will get older and then become “less beautiful” (in this culture). So, we should be happy with what we have now cuz it doesn’t get perkier ;-)
But really, I would like to get beyond this. That was just my way of reasoning to be confortable with myself now, based on the surrounding standards. I would like to be happy with me… how long does that take? haha silly question, but for those of you who are really happy with yourself – how did you do it? What are some of the difficulties you had with this? Any advice for a self-loathing person who is sick of it?
I think it can take forever, Teresa. It’s hard to get to know yourself, get comfortable with yourself, be okay with yourself. Some of us work harder at it than others, some of us have an easier time than others, some of us are born better at it… I think it’s a lifelong struggle for most people, though – we are so negative about ourselves, we say things to/about ourselves that we would never say to our friends, things that would horrify us if anyone else said it about us. I guess the best answer is you just have to keep being aware, keep trying at it. Do your best. Good luck, and you CAN do it (if I can get closer to being okay with myself, anyone can!). : )