A love letter to myself

To the old (younger) version of myself:

You were so in love with life, and so full of ambitions. Do not ever apologize for that. The hard work and sacrifices you made paved the way to achieving your goals. The reason why you’re in California, why you became a nurse and worked 2-3 jobs at the same time.

You may have not focused on chasing love and allowed yourself to experience the truest form of it, but do not regret those times because for sure by now you know you learned a lot from it and you know you kickstarted your life to provide and offer something stable to the person you would want to spend your life with.

You have a natural gift to be self-aware and focus on the things that matter to you at every given moment. You focused on loving yourself and putting your dreams into fruition. As they always say, you can’t have it all at the same time. You have enjoyed your youth and did a lot of things with the type of freedom you had.  You may not be courageous enough to end some things and relationship in your life during that time so you can fully enjoy freedom and find the love you deserve… but you have all the valid reasons for it. and remember… timing is everything.  

To my present self:

Look at you right now. You have finally given yourself permission to experience love in its purest form. You never thought that you would meet someone who will reveal who you really are, the most vulnerable lover who will be willing to do a lot of things for love.

Right now, you are coping with pain, sadness and loss. You are still very aware of what you are feeling, and you must continue to allow yourself to feel it so you can learn how to navigate from this and be able to keep going in life while you handle it all.

You are still very aware of what you are, what you’re willing to do and able to give. But I want to let you know that in the next days or so, there will be times that you will intermittently question your worth and get stuck in feeling how inadequate you are.

The wound will always reopen because you were never given the chance to hear what you need to do so you can make things right and prove how much you value the relationship and the person.

You will reach a point where you will think you were not and you will never be enough. But guess what, you were and you are. You just might not be enough during that certain point of their lives.

No matter how you loudly say to the world- that you fall short and want to make up for it, that you will move to where they are, be there for them in the ways they need you to show up for them.

The reality is — if that’s what’s needed from you, you could have been kept and chosen. But you weren’t.  That’s why you’re here right now. Coping.

You will go through what you need to go through.

To not have even a tiny bit of resentment in your heart right now is very impressive. Look how far you’ve become.  Choosing to respect and understand what others are going through even if it means being eradicated from their lives? wow.  just wow. what a grown person you are knowing that hate and anger will not serve you great things at the moment and the future.

You have meticulously evaluated yourself and took ownership of your shortcomings and failures. You have chosen accountability over excuses and not make yourself feel less guilty about it.

But you do not need to take all the blame. You are human being as well; you are a work in progress. Learn from it.

Do not be a prisoner of shame and guilt.

You can be better for yourself because you want to — for yourself.

If people are not choosing to stay by your side and not allowing you to grow with them, do not force them, though I know you begged, and there’s nothing to be ashamed about it. But you must realize that the love they have for you may not be that enough as they are not willing to give allowance for your mistakes and growth.

It will be okay, not today… but it will be.

You are doing the right thing on sitting through the pain. You do not wait until you feel nothing, but you need to learn how to live with what still hurts.

To my future self:

You will be proud of me. You will look back and be very amazed at how I have developed myself; my character.  

One day, when you see the person you fought for and longed for, you can confidently and genuinely say in your heart that you did what you can in the best way you can.

You will be proud of the love and patience you have given to the people you love.

You have created a lot of impact to the people around you, especially those that truly matter in your life, even those that aren’t with you anymore.

You have always been a giving person, and you deserve the pure happiness that you surely are experiencing.

You showed a lot of growth by putting your energy in self-discovery and development, rather than putting it all in questioning if you will be able to find someone who will choose you ; hoping that one day you will meet your own person, but you focused on choosing to grow from the pain and continue to become better —someone who did not give up on love and life. You chose to continue loving life and not give up on people, regardless of the pain they caused.

You spent most of the time improving yourself rather than hoping that there’s a better person who will make you feel enough.

You have broken hearts and had your heart broken. But you are whole and you are enough.