A message to myself

In 2021, I will no longer be held captive by a version of myself that is never satisfied. A version that takes what everyone else says and thinks into consideration, before even a flicker of self responsibility or appreciation kicks in.

I want to overcome what for so long I thought was, “just who I am”.

Hard-wired.

Set in stone.

Those are the phrases I would say— ways I described, or maybe even justified settling for a version of myself that existed before I sat down to write this letter. A version of myself that will not cease to exist once this letter is done. Something I fail to recognize at every new year’s beginning is that I am quite literally made up of all the decisions and choices I’ve made. In other words, until the day I die, no one can tell me for a fact what I am or am going to amount to.

When my parents look at me, I am sure they see their kind, hilarious, life of the party daughter. Usually so full of love and light.

They also see the second child. Not lesser than (hopefully), just 2 of 2.

The second page.

The child who was always more difficult to handle growing up, compared to her older brother.

Calls from teachers. Bad grades. Finally, the ADHD was diagnosed.

One thing after another piling up, and even though the pile mainly existed because of the subsets that stemmed from my mental disorder, it doesn’t make it any less annoying for a parent to bring order to.

Even with the diagnosis that came in 7th grade, it hardly eased my mind. It was a reminder that for the rest of my life I was going to have to work that much harder than my peers to get through school and college. Little did I know then, that high school was a cake walk.

I went to a beautiful four year college, but only for two years. I have this tendency of fucking things up when they’re going especially well, or when a situation holds a ton of potential. I think it would be totally appropriate to compare myself to a toddler running around with scissors. Parents frantically chasing me around, begging me to proceed with caution. Of course, since I am a toddler in this analogy, and while I may hear them and try my best to listen, sometimes it's just a lost cause to shout orders at a 3 year old and expect them to not get overwhelmed. As they shout for the fourth time, “SARAH! Stop running with the scissors before you fall and cut yourself!”

Translation: “Sarah! Please stop neglecting your duties, skipping class, and spending all your time with that boyfriend! You are going to lose everything if you keep this up”.

I kept it up.

It’s a funny thing, actively making choices that alter the course of your life, because no one believes you when you say it was a mistake. My parents certainly did not. They believe I am hellbent on ruining my life and have told me as much. The boyfriend I mentioned, the one I spent all my time with, he had no idea I was failing all of my classes during my final semester. My choices, for one of the first times in my life, affected someone outside of myself. I let someone believe that they had a concrete future with me, that I was going to be a constant in their life. I loved him, yet I did not even tell him that something serious was on the verge of happening, I just let it. In my eyes, I did not only let myself or my parents down. I promised myself to someone who was a fairytale from day one, someone who was broken when they found out I was leaving.

I seem to spend a large percentage of my life looking at my past. I would argue I live there more than I do the present, and surely more than I’d ever dare to step into my minds version of the future… My future. I think if I spent more time loving myself, I wouldn’t be so quick to hide in my past. There’s an odd comfort living there. Wrapped up in the old relationships and promises, before they got ugly and distorted by events I wish didn’t occur. There’s also punishment. Reliving my mistakes, over and over. Remembering the high hopes I once had for my future, and then the decisions I made that caused them to crumble.

In the last year, I was given choices in every aspect of my life. Family, education, work, even love. With those decisions I managed to destroy every department of my life.

My message, my hope, my wish to myself in 2021 is nothing. I require nothing of myself in this upcoming year. No big goals or unrealistic expectations. No achievable goals or small tasks.

My letter to myself is quite short…

Dear Sarah,

In this new year, think about your choices. Value your own opinions and desires above other’s— so long as they are beneficial. If you are ready to go back to school, do it. If not, don’t let other people tell you that your life is going no where and that you’re a failure. You’re still in love with that boy whose heart you feel you destroyed and deserve no forgiveness for doing so—do you remember that spoken word poem we listened to a few years ago by Olivia Gatwood? “The man tells me he does not love me, and he does not love me. The man tells me who he is, and I listen. I have so much beautiful time”. I said this would be short, remember? Not simple. Stop wasting energy on people who are not eager to be apart of your life, no matter what happened between you in the past. Oh yeah, and call your dad too. I know things have been rough between the family but twenty-one is a very young age to start racking up regrets.

Earlier I said that we have a tendency to fuck up situations with a lot of potential. While this may be true, remember this; the situations you were in, the moments you fucked up that you think make up who you are, they just don’t. You are bursting with potential. You brought it with you to every situation you “ruined”, but you took it with you when you left. It lives in you, not in what you think you have lost.