This Is For You, On The Darkest Days Of Your Life

I know the emptiness you feel right now. I feel it too. I know how it feels to want to pull the covers over your head and never leave your bed. I want that too. I know what it feels like to run back to your dorm and cry your heart and feel like the only way out is if you die. I know how it feels to be the outcast and to be misunderstood. I feel this way too.

I also know how it feels to want to be remembered and seen and heard. I know it feels like it was your fault. It was not your fault. You cannot give up now. You have come too far to only get this far.

You want to be remembered for your contagious laugh, the way you can light up the room, the way you can sing and dance without a care in the world. You hope to be a person worth loving. You do not want to be remembered as the girl who killed herself. You do not want to be remembered as the girl with the eating disorder. You are so much more than that.

You’ve changed. You are not the same person you were three years ago. You have come out with more scars and more purpose. More grief and losses and more laughs and successes. You’ve seen vulnerability and truth.

You’ve cried in doctors offices and alone on your bathroom floor. You have sat in a therapist’s office and heard that you would never get better. You’ve also sat in a therapist’s office with complete acceptance and freedom. You cried again. You let go and held back on again so tight.

I know it’s hard. I know.

You have to keep going because there is still so much more to do and much more to see. You have more people to meet and more lives to touch.

It’s okay that you are sad and know you are not your sadness. You are not the things that hurt you. You are not your struggles. It’s okay that you are feeling this way.

Life can be a pretty cool thing. Get out of your bed. Put one foot in front of the other. Pet a stranger’s dog. Take a different way to school. Go to bed at 7 am and wake up at 5 pm. Create your own path. If it makes you happy, do it. There are better things coming.

This is me giving me you permission until you no longer need it: It’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to laugh. It’s okay to be gay. It’s okay to take care of yourself. It’s okay to be you. There is nothing wrong with you.

I hope you have a day. I cannot wait for the day when I can tell you, ‘have a good day,’ and you’ll smile back, because you know you will.