To Me: Open On Mother’s Day 2019

It’s Mother’s Day, 2018. Your 25-year-old self is in a place of anxious wonder. Anxiously awaiting your big move into your new apartment near New York City. The apartment where your room will be the size of a small walk-in closet, but you don’t even care because it’s finally a space to call home. You will make the best of your little spot, turning it into the greatest, Pinterest-worthy sanctuary you’ve ever seen; with decor you’ve been conjuring up in your head for the past year and a half; or really, since the day you graduated college and moved back in with your parents, almost exactly 4 years ago today.

Mother’s Day, 2016. You were 24-years-old. The man you thought you would spend the rest of your life with decided to end things. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you how he didn’t even bother calling that morning. How instead, he just never showed up to pick you up for Mother’s Day brunch. How he just abandoned you after a year of wild romance, and left you without a word, so you ran home to your mom on Mother’s Day and cried in her arms.

Mother’s Day, 2018. As excited as you are about your apartment, there’s also an air of sadness surrounding you. You fell for someone so wonderful, and you had to come to the hard realization that it just isn’t going to work out right now. He seemed like everything you could ever want, and you had a chemistry you thought was unstoppable; But, your time together was cut short, because he needs to finish learning, and you need to continue growing.

Mother’s Day, 2017. Although your heart was ripped out of your chest a year ago, and for months you wondered how you would move on, you got passed it. You’ve been writing blog posts and healing yourself for a year, and you just published a poetry book that you are extremely proud of. You’re about to move into a shore house with a bunch of strangers, and you’re nervous, but it turns out to be one of the best and most fun decisions you will ever make in your life.

Mother’s Day, 2016. That boy who left you left you in a tornado of emotions. Swirling around the possibilities of what the future holds, but always returning to the arms of the man who manipulated and abused you. You are anxious because you know you deserve so much more, but depressed because you don’t know if you will ever find it. You cry yourself to sleep weekly, wondering why you were not good enough for him.

Mother’s Day, 2018. You want to cry because you know you will miss the boy who you just had to end things with. You want to cry because you know he won’t be there when you move into your apartment. You know he won’t be there when you start singing with your new band, right around the corner from your new place. In this time of things that are new and exciting, you can’t help but want to cry over history repeating itself, except this time you don’t cry. This time you know you are good enough, it’s just the timing isn’t right.

Mother’s Day, 2014. You just graduated college, but you didn’t go to graduation. Instead, you sang on a stage in a small restaurant for your boyfriend, a bunch of strangers, and your mom, who was beaming up at you with so much pride and joy. You knew she’d rather be watching you on stage, over watching you walk across a field to grab some piece of paper that cost entirely too much money. You were never one to let “normal” define you, so instead of going to a traditional graduation, you followed your heart to something even greater.

Mother’s Day, 2019. You are reading this note, and reminiscing about this day for the past 5 years. Since that day in May 2014 when you graduated college. Since that day in 2016, when you experienced your biggest and most life-changing heartbreak. Since that day in 2017, when you published your book or the day in 2018, when you made a big move towards the city, unsure of how it would work out, and unsure if you and the boy you fell for would ever see each other again.

Mother’s Day, 2019, you’re reading this and remembering the failed relationships over the years; remembering the days you felt like you weren’t good enough; remembering the times you felt anxious about moving down the shore; about moving near the city; about moving on from someone you were dying to be with.

You’re reading this and smiling at how it all turned out. You’re reading this and laughing, regardless of where you are at this very moment. Because whether or not you are feeling proud today; whether or not you are happy with a decision you just had to make; whether or not you rekindled that old love, or found a new love, or began a new chapter right in this very moment, I know for certain that you are so much further along than you were a year ago.

I know for certain that you took whatever life had to throw your way and turned it into the greatest, most magical, Pinterest-worthy dream you could have possibly imagined for yourself and beyond. I know that you stayed strong after that boy left you in 2016, and I know you will be even stronger after you had to leave someone behind in 2018.

Because that’s what you do. You move on, and you become stronger. And I hope that wherever you are on this beautiful Mother’s Day in 2019, that you are proud to look back and see you never settled for anything less than what you deserve.