To My 19 Year Old Self

To My 19 year Old Self

1. You will not always feel this way. Damaged. Hollow. Haunted. And, sad. So very sad.
2. The days of picking cigarette butts out of your hair and tossing them into a toilet full of vomit will be a distant memory.
3. You will heal from the humiliating blows to your stomach and the beer he poured over your head right before the ash tray. It will be unfathomable one day.
4. You will heal from the years of physical, sexual and mental abuse and see it as a horror movie you once starred in long, long ago. You WILL heal. From. It. All.
5. You will be called horrible names. A crazy bitch, a liar, a whore and so much worse. But, it will NOT break you.
6. You will leave your teenage boyfriend and go off to college and meet another. And, another. And, another.
7. You will be raped in college by your brother’s fraternity brother. No one will believe you.
8. You will leave that college after trying to kill yourself.
9. Your father will take you to a Psychologist who, it turns out, is a powerful Shaman. This Shaman will become your second father.  And, your life will forever change.
10. You will be lost over and over and over again, but you will survive. Survive on lots of Marlboro Lights and Long Island Ice Teas, but survive--you will.
11. You will enter into another abusive relationship in your early twenties.
12. You will realize that you were just as broken as all the lovers you attracted. You were both wounded. Both begging for love and acceptance that you hadn’t found within yet.
13. You will begin to take full responsibility for your life and happiness and blame NO ONE.
14. You will have two children all the while getting your Bachelor’s in English/Psychology.
15. Your beautiful baby girl and baby boy will forever change your life. They will save it. They will love you when you cannot love yourself. They will speak for you when you cannot find your voice.
16. You will divorce your first husband and learn that even deep, maddening love isn't always enough.
17. You will discover yourself in the years that you are a single Mom. Ten long happy and sad years where you allow your body and mind to really, really heal. It was oh so tired.
18. You will begin to heal while watching Teletubbies and Elmo with your kids. Slowly. Painfully. Angrily. But, heal. You will. Not by cursing the people that hurt you, but by loving the hurt parts. For you, oh dear one, will have hurt them too.
19. You will meet a man when you are 33 years old in a hallway on your first day of work in Colorado. Oh yeah, you will leave everthing you knew in Massachusetts and be fucking BRAVE ENOUGH to move across the country to start a new life with your children.
20. This blue eyed man will be GENTLE. Patient. Persistent. Strong as hell. And, loving. So loving towards you. You will be scared shitless.
21. This man will accept your children as his very own blood.
22. You will get cervical cancer and have a hysterectomy, leaving you unable to have another child. It will be OK. This will be your path...and the man that loves you, will not care.
23. You will alter your appearance in search for love. Those double D's will cause a decade of sickness and the wrong kind of attention, but you will survive. Don't worry. You will get those suckers out before your 45th birthday.
24. You will leave your career as an Executive Assistant in the Corporate world and become a Reiki Master. Eventually, you will become a successful Shamanic Reiki energy healer and work with people all over the world.  
25. You will be paid your worth. You will work in your pj’s and love every minute of it.
26. Your life will be comfortable, warm and supportive.
27. You will live in your dream house in the mountains of Colorado.
28. You will laugh A LOT. You will cry A LOT. You will scream A LOT. And, you will dance through all of it with a growing powerful light inside of you. You will recognize your strength and resilience more and more by the time you are 44 years old.
29. Your children will grow up saying they had the “best childhoods”. You will be VERY close with your kids. But, you won’t be able to save them from their own pain. Just as no one could save you from yours. This will be HARD.
30. You will learn how to let go.
31. You will be grateful for EVERY moment of your life. Every breath. Every person that held your hand along the way. Every friend. Every enemy that forced you to look inside.
32. You will have SO many animals. You will love them all.
33. By the time you are in your forties, you will finally love your body. Fully. Every inch of it. Your anorexic days will be long over.
34. You will forgive. You will forgive them ALL. You will appreciate that they were your GREATEST teachers. You will release the poison in your chest and transmute it into love.
35. You will survive. You will thrive. You will learn to love your darkness as much as your light.

So, hold on. Stay alive. You will want to meet your amazing husband and children one day.  Your son and daughter will be survivors like you and make you proud. You will want to live THIS exact life. You will have NO regrets. You can’t see it now, but an incredible life is there. Just beyond the horizon. Welcome it. Embrace the uncertainty of it All. It will be worth it in the end, my friend.