A Love Letter To The Younger Version Of Myself.

Dear Sade,

You my darling are magic.

Yes. Magic. Fireworks fly from the tips of your fingers in inimitable bursts of colour and creativity, everything you touch is Gold. A magical Midas touch that will only strengthen as you grow older and wiser each year.

Your late teens feel like a vast black ocean that you’ve fallen into and you’re not sure University is for you. You are in limbo – you failed a module in your first year and are having to retake it in a few months and if you don’t you won’t be able to continue on with architecture. But you will pass it, and you will graduate, for the Lord that brought you this far would not leave you to perish. 

There are times where it has almost felt like you were drowning in a deep dark sea of sadness, and my dear, it will come again through the upsets of broken relationships, perceived failures, and intense fear of the unknown, the daily greyness of “what does the future hold?”, but you will keep holding on and with each year that you do, a grand plan will begin to unfurl before your eyes. At age 25 you will see that everything you have gone through, has brought you to exactly the right place. Those stormy mountains you will climb with red raw hands, tears streaming down your face, will not break you. No, at the peak you will look down and you will understand it all.

You look at your body and want to hide, puberty came like a thief in the night and suddenly you sprouted breasts, thicker thighs and the gentle curve of childbearing hips that are well known throughout your lineage. Your body is covered in delicate golden threads that weave from the tops of your shoulders down to the soft lull of your breasts, before beginning again at your hips, snaking towards your buttocks and inner thighs before making a grand and unexpected appearance on the tops of your knees. They make you want to cover up and hide, these shining shimmering scars, symbolic of your now softer, rounder body. I promise though, after a while these thoughts will fade and ironically so will those stretch marks.

You are in love with love. Everywhere you see it. You see the sparkling crackling warmth of those fiery embers all around. And you are enamoured! Like most young women, you have a solid idea of how you will meet your Prince Charming, maybe you’ll bump into each other in the theological department of a huge library, books falling and accidentally brushing fingers whilst picking them up. Or maybe you’ll meet them at some sort of architecture event, glasses steaming up, awkward smiles and one too many glasses of free prosecco. Or maybe you’d meet at church whilst both serving on a Sunday, he’d make his way across the room to declare that he wants to do a bible study just the both of you. But that doesn’t happen, you will meet men and they will not be what the Disney movies said they would be. You meet men who are lessons in naivety. You think you can change this, but my darling that will never happen. These painful memories will be pivotal to your emotional growth. You will realise that breakups will not kill you, they may sting for a bit but I promise you, a year on and you will barely remember what their smile looked like, how they smelt and what they did. You will begin to concentrate on yourself and your surroundings and abandon the idea of love until it is ready, and you will know it is when the time is right. 

At age 21 you sit on your bed at university wondering how on Earth your future will pan out. You are terrified, everything feels so big, too vast for you to comprehend. Even a few years later at age 25, you sit again on your bed at home with a second degree to your name but a sense of fear that feels tethered to your heart. Once you let go, you eventually fall into place, the journey is not easy and even the place you fall into is simply a temporary part of your journey.

Do not worry so much in your youth, but instead take each day as it comes and be kind to yourself, this period may be difficult, but you will look back at these mountains as mere speed bumps in the grander scheme of your life because you my darling will achieve so much! You will become a leader for hurt women, for young women, for women who need a friend or a sister. The seeds that were planted in your chest by the almighty willing you to be a shoulder to cry on and a person to listen, will begin to sprout around age 24 and by 27 you will be a mentor not just to Yossy, but to many women. You will be a role model and wonder how someone who has come from such a bubble of dark confusion could be looked up to and my darling it is because you made it through the treacherous ocean of life and you not only survived, you thrived. And you will swim, again and again, forcing your enemies and demons to drown instead of you. Keep your eyes fixed on the almighty and your arms outstretched in surrender.

Youth is such a confusing and challenging space and you will look back on these times almost fondly, laughing at what you went through, knowing that the almighty carried you through to the other side a stronger, kinder, warmer and more empathetic woman, and my darling, there is so much more. More than you would have ever believed. Just. Keep. Holding. On.

To all my women. You my darling are magic. Just. Keep. Holding. On.

What I’m Wearing…

Rebeca Satin Dress c/o Boden | Cordelia Heels c/o Boden | Virgo Necklace c/o Sif Jakobs | Earrings – H&M (old)

[ photos by the very talented shotsbyfifi ]

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