Tuesday, January 3, 2023

To my babies on learning life

 

To my Babies,

Its been a long time since I last wrote to you. I have tried several times to pick up a pen and write you a letter but each time I am met with the knowledge that what I say today may hold no weight a year from now. So I kept waiting, waiting until I felt certain I had the answers, the knowledge, the secrets to life I could pass down to you and stand behind for generations to come. I was waiting for a feeling of certainty to once again wash over me as it had when I was younger and saw the world in black and white.

But that feeling never came, and its now been four years since my last letter to you. Whats strange is that, although the confidence I have in my knowledge of life itself is lower than its ever been, the confidence I carry in  who I am is at an all time high. I feel more connected to myself, what makes me tick, my foundation of morals and overall sense of peace in my own skin than I ever have before.

So my children, I cannot tell you about life, what boxes to check, what rules to adhere to, what choices to make in order to be happy and successful. But I want to tell you something I have found to be far more valuable… the secret to finding yourself.

Let go:

The first thing I learned on my journey to myself is to let go of anything and everything you thought you knew, or needed, to be happy. Over the course of your life you will develop your own list of items, opinions, perceptions, relationships that you will genuinely believe you must have in order to be happy. You will stay awake at night tearing yourself apart if something in one of these areas is struggling and may truly believe that you are inadequate or incapable of being simply Ok, without finding peace in this area…. My baby, let it go. That thing does not define you, it should not control you, and it is absolutely not the one true ticket to happiness. if it is causing you pain, tearing you down, and leading you to believe you are inadequate, it does not serve you. Let it go.

This letting go will be painful, and scary, and strip you of everything you thought was important. But once its gone, you will see the most beautiful thing, you will see you, your core, what’s important, and you will shocked at just how peaceful that core will feel.  

 

Stay true to yourself:

My child in life, there will be several times that you will be faced with a situation in which you will want to speak up, defend yourself, share your side of a already traumatic story in the hopes of maintaining your image or altering others perceptions of you in order to save face. Don’t do this baby. The opinions of others is fleeting and participating in the hurt will do nothing more than prolong the pain. Five years from now you wont even remember the names of the audience keeping you up at night now, so simply do what you believe is right, Make decisions based only on your own thoughts and opinions, do only what your heart tells you to do. keep your forward motion, and stay focused on who you are and what you need to be at peace with who you are. Those who love you already know the truth, and for everyone else… the truth will be revealed with time. Hold your head high, knowing who you are and what your truth is and allow that to be enough to rest peacefully at night and stand behind yourself even when no one else is around.

 

Be free:

This, my baby, is a big one. If I had only one wish for you it would be that you become so incredibly free from all societal expectations or constraints. I want you to dance in the rain, run through open fields, never stop chasing those sunsets, and always laugh the loudest in a quiet room. But more than that, I want you to be free of your own constraints…. I want you to know that you can change directions, at any moment you can decide that the life you spent years building is no longer the life you want, and if that happens I want you to simply turn around and start again down a new journey, thanking the past for the joy it gave you, and looking forward to new chapter of unknown. Its ok to evolve, its ok to start over, its not ok to stay committed to a decision that no longer brings you happiness simply because at one point you said that you would. This can be anything from careers, relationships, living demographics, to personality, interests and opinions. When we force ourself to stay committed to a thing we no longer believe in we dim our light and commit to a life of unhappiness. So please, Just be you, unapologetically and whole heartedly. You are beautiful my love, in all forms, please don’t ever stop following your light.

 

Know that I am always behind you:

Above all else my friend, please never forget that I am always here. I am here cheering you on when you succeed, but I am also here to hold you when you fail. If one day you want to go to the Olympics and the next day you want to be a peanut salesman I will respond to each aspiration with the same enthusiasm as a mom whose child was the first to land on the moon. My baby, there will be days when you feel as though you are walking on clouds, when everything is going right and the sun is shining down on you, and on those days I will smile and watch quietly as you glow in your element so happy for your success. There will also be days where your heart is heavy, where you feel as though everything and everyone is against you, and it will take all your strength to pick yourself up and get out of bed in the morning, ill be there for those too, to offer you comfort, love, acceptance, and remind you, that no matter what, you are still my first pick for any team. My dream for you my love is that you see yourself, accept yourself, and love yourself the way I do for you. Regardless of if you have it all figured out, even if the you today is completely different then the you that existed yesterday, weather the world is with you or against you, I pray that you go to bed each night proud of yourself, strong in your convictions, and content in the truth of who you are and what you have done.

So my babies, if I can teach you nothing else in this life, I pray that you will learn just that.

I love you babies, more than you will ever know. Stay kind, stay free.

Xoxox-momma

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