It’s been a difficult few weeks and I find myself getting more and more discouraged so this letter is to me from me with love, affection, power, and strength.

Dear Nina,

Hey girl! I see you struggling and I know you’re starting to doubt yourself again.  I see you starting to not believe in how much you worked and how much you sacrificed to be in the place you’re in now.  I see that you’re starting to feel like you aren’t good enough and that you wasted your time in the classroom.  I see that you feel invisible and unattractive.  I see that you feel trapped, unskilled, and untalented. I see that you feel ashamed that you struggle mentally and you often wonder how it would feel to be “normal” and unafraid of  the strains of every day.   I see that it takes so much work just to be happy that a new day has come because you feel like you should be successful with opportunity, strength, and power.  

But I also see that you gained more strength I’ve ever seen you have before.  That you try your hardest and prove to yourself every day that it’s possible to, despite the struggle, regain consciousness of the reality of hope and positivity.  And even though things have been difficult, you still seem to always persevere, you seem to always push through.  Every obstacle that has come in your way since you were young has never devoured you.  When you were grappling with your mental health in high school and college, you always made it past the panic and the tears.  You always showed up and showed out even when you didn’t want to. When you didn’t have motivation, when you didn’t want to go to the counseling center or psych services you did.  When they took away your financial aid and you almost didn’t go to college things turned around.  When you were called weak and told you were unable to reach the standards of your major in high school, you showed that you were, you were tossed from one choir to another, but you still showed that you were good enough.  When you were on conditional in a program you wanted to be in so bad, you made that conditional a permanent. And all the times you were outcasted and alone, when you were by yourself you always sparkled with power, self-control, and self-respect.  This is not even half of the things you struggle with, but its shows a lot about how much you’ve overcome. 

You are beautiful, worthy, and strong.  Only strength can endure all that you have gone through and still have the courage to want to tell other people that they can do anything despite the world telling them that they can’t because of their gender, beliefs, sexuality, or any other identity marker that makes them who they are.  You are okay and you will continue to be okay.  Just take deep breaths and raise your head.  Your life is not for no reason.  You have a reason to keep trying to do your best.     

From the one that loves you the most, 

Yourself 

So, even though it may seem blurry right now and you don’t want to be positive, try to be kind to yourself.  Always be kind to yourself.  Turn the negative self-talk phrases into encouraging ones.  Make your perception light, even if your circumstance is dark and smudged.  Even when you have all the reasons to be hopeless, let hope blossom instead.