Dear Younger Rebeca. This is you. Rebeca. But at almost 21 years old. I'm still 20.
You have done quite a few of these. Letters to yourself. All of them have been school assignments, and be honest. You never took any of them seriously.
But this is me...writing a letter to you...aka me... No grade in the balance. Just a one on one talk for you and me.
Here we go...
Dear younger self...
Your life right now is going...GREAT. Funny because I'm sure at your age, I didn't think I would even make it to eighteen.
After everything you will be going through/ and have already gone through... your life will get better.
But it will suck a little bit at first. Don't worry though, this is where I come in and say, you will get through it. Hell, I'm living proof of that.
Here's how it's going to go...
You will grow up seeing your parents fight...all the time. It will ruin your perception on love. YOU will fight with your sisters ALL the time, you all have the scars to prove it. It will ruin your relationship with them until you're an adult, but don't worry, your relationship will get way better.
Both of those things will pass, eventually, but it will affect you for the rest of your life, sadly.
Your anxiety starts around four years old, it's minor. Mom and Dad don't think much of it, no one does. But surprise, your anxiety right now is here to stay.
You feel as if you don't belong, even at such a young age, even in your family. But don't worry, one day there will be a time where people accept you BECAUSE you don't fit in.
Your anxiety is tied to the fights in the house, and you start to stay away from people. Including your family. That's when the depression starts.
School is the only time you feel...happy. But even then, with the anxiety, it's hard for you to open up to people, especially strangers. Making friends is hard, so you make acquaintances. Making someone your friend was hard, and it will devastate you when your friendship ends.
You make your first real friend in third grade, the nicest person in class, and you're still friends to this day, even if you don't speak that much anymore.
I'm going to give you some advice that I wish I had back then.
Don't be jealous of your friends. They are all going through their own battles, you don't need to put them up on a pedestal. That is how you end up hurt.
Don't be afraid to feel. Don't be afraid to cry. Don't be afraid to express your feelings and how you're feeling at certain moments.
Who is it doing good if you're keeping everything inside?
You'll have multiple break downs before you're even a teenager... But these breakdowns are secret to everyone else but your family.
It'll all make sense one day...
Middle school was the hard years. Looks meant everything. You put too much powder on your face in sixth grade...You put too much eyeliner in seventh grade. I know you'll think it looks good then, but take this from me, it'll only make your skin worse. Oh. And in eighth grade...DONT GET BANGS.
Thirteen was an extremely hard year.
You will meet who you think will be your best friend forever. But truth is, she will teach you the worst habit of your life. She'll encourage you to hurt yourself, sometimes during class just to get the adrenaline. She'll make it a competition, and you'll soon learn that it's not okay.
You'll know what it is...and I know it will feel good, and almost painless, and you will feel the relief. Just know that it's temporary, and your body doesn't deserve to be covered in scars like that.
This bad habit will go on until the summer after graduating. You graduated three years ago, so you've been three years clean.
Now we're in high school.
A new school puts a strain on friendships, and you grow apart from people you thought you'd know forever. It will break you, for a moment. Then you will meet knew friends, become even closer with people who you didn't let yourself become close with in middle school.
You will go through high school in pain, not just emotionally, but internally. Don't worry, the doctors will EVENTUALLY figure out what it is. You'll end up with a scar on your stomach, and although it looks horrible at first, it will grow on you.
And as for the emotional pain, you'll try and get some help. But after forty minutes of talking, you'll decide that you're just not ready to come to terms with what could be wrong with you. But you'll also learn that it's not your fault.
You will lose friends, people in your class, and it's a specific persons death that forces you to go into out patient treatment for your emotional problems. You will meet people in treatment, including a specific person that you will never see again and miss everyday, she will be your best friend in there, and these people will change your life for the better.
You will miss a month of school, three weeks, and a week of spring break, but you will learn what you have.
And it will all make sense.
When you come back to school, it's like the sun is shining directly at you. And girl, you're getting a tan. The cloud over your head is no longer there.
Though sometimes you feel hurt, and sometimes you will feel depressed, you no longer think of the Last Resort. Because, everything you've been repressing, it's coming out. Including happiness. And all of a sudden, you'll feel happiness like you've never felt it before.
But now you're also feeling sadness, and anger, and so many feelings you didn't know you COULD have. And for once, it's a good thing. Because now you know how to deal with it.
Now you're more outspoken in school and especially at home. Your relationship with your parents will improve significantly, and your younger siblings as well.
Although it's still hard, you manage. At least now you are acknowledging it, it's there, and you're dealing with it.
Dealing with it means that you've pushed the toxic people out of your life. That includes one family member. One that held a lot of resentment over you.
You cut her out of your life. For a year. Then she grew up, she was becoming a mother, and you haven't had a fight since. It makes me want to cry just thinking of all the fighting you used to do, and now you go over to her house all the time, and watch her kids, who you love so much.
You will go to community college for a year...and it will not work out. You leave school to work, and write.
Now you have five books out. The most recent one is doing exceptionally well, and you're very happy about it. This could be the book that gets you noticed.
You are an assistant manager at a pizzeria, and you are thriving there. Although, what you want is to be a writer. And I am working really hard to make that happen.
Things will try to break you, people will try to hurt you, and you will want to wish you were never alive. But you will heal, get strong, and realize that life is precious.
I am twenty years old right now. Four months shy of being 21.
Everything is really great right now, and these are the words I live by:
Everything will be okay in the end, if it's not okay, it's not the end.
I know I could have used those words when I was you, younger Rebeca. Because there were so many times I wished that it was the end, and now I'm so glad that I didn't choose to make it the end.
I love you. Love yourself. I know it's hard, but I know you can do it.
Signed,
REBECA XX
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