oh future self: you made it here. you're strong and lovely, and you are full of graceful and deep and passionate and often overwhelming emotions. and it is all that - mixed up inside with a load of guts and stuff - that brought you here. and I know it feels so many ways - I know you're exhausted and ready to just 'exist'... and that's coming - there's just a bit further to go.
so hold on - stay with me (me, being you, of course). we will make it through together. this is a promise for your heart and soul. and in learning to trust, this is where we must start - trusting yourself. you are perfectly right. what that gut tells you - the same gut that people have called you crazy and judgmental and short sighted and closed minded for - it's right. because if it's not the person, it's the timing. and if it's not the timing, it's you. and if it's not you, it's the person.
It's not that I wish you didn't love. I wish different things for you, my dear, sweet damaged love.
i wish you wouldn't give your entire self. I wish you wouldn't give up on you, to invest in the other. I wish you trusted your gut. I wish you would believe those pep talks, and I wish you would stand your ground on what you believed in. I wish you didn't care so much what other people thought - that you would leave situations and friendships and relationships when it first becomes necessary, and every time after that. and I wish you wouldn't lose sleep over it afterwards - because stories are just that. but you live in truth.
I wish you made health and friendship and sleep and stillness and meditation and fun and ME a priority. I wish you wouldn't lose lightness and I wish that you knew that if/when it happens, losing your lightness was not something you had done wrong, not your fault, not something to be ashamed of. I wish you would love yourself enough to insist on souls to be heavy with, souls who will feel sadness or pain or grief alongside you - if only for that moment. those moments.
I think - I hope - that you remember this: when you get there, you will be easier to love. because you will love yourself immensely. and please - continue to make that your number 1 focus. no matter what you hear, or see, or know is being twisted and turned and stretched out of shape - you are you. and when you walk through the world with integrity intact, you will have made it. you are perfectly imperfect, and predictably unpredictable, and those things make you so loveable it hurts. so remember that: those who love you truly, love you a lot. and you're worth all of that love.
and also - future self - ALWAYS stop for the roadside attraction. it makes for great framed photos.