25

Dear 25 year old me,

Well done. You're a quarter of a century. You think you're really old now but you're not. You're going to make more mistakes and it's going to be hard. You're going to fall down but keep picking yourself back up every single time. You're going to hurt. You're going to cry. You're going to lose people and lose yourself along the way. Don't worry though. You'll find you again. You'll think you're alone constantly but you're never really alone. There's always someone who thinks of you and likes you for you. You can be you. You're allowed to be.

Things will happen in your life that make you happy and things will happen that make you sad and that's just how it's going to be. You can't change your past but you can do something about your future. You'll worry too much. You'll worry so much that you can't stand it and you can't sleep at night because you don't really want to wake up. But you're not afraid. You're stronger than you think. You're a fighter and you keep going because you have to and you know it. You keep going because that's all you can do.

You'll see eventually what you have to do. You have to change because it's the only way out of your own mess. It's the only way forwards. You'll be happier soon and you'll be happy because you want to be, not because someone has told you to be or because you need to be. You'll do it for you and it will feel so good. It's going to be ok because you tell yourself every day that you're going to be and you'll learn to love yourself even though you can't possibly think about that now. You know everything has a funny way of working itself out sometimes.

Every day you'll learn something new and you'll want to keep learning and keep knowing things about yourself that you didn't know before. You're amazing because nobody else is like you. Remember that. Remember you are you and you're always going to be you. You can be you. You're allowed to be.