A Love Letter To Myself

Last week, I came across Meg Stalter’s love letter to herself which went viral and inspired other people to write their own letters and I thought, what a bloody great idea. Then, I saw a friend of mine’s story about an old-fashioned paper valentine and I remembered how when we were in school St.Valentine’s was actually exciting (as opposed to depressing for different reasons at different times). It wasn’t so much because you got valentines, but because other people saw you getting valentines. What you got was attention. In light of this and the fact that I’ve needed a little positive self-regard lately, I allowed myself to indulge in a love letter to self. I encourage you to do the same. Here’s mine:

Dear N, 

I love how your motivation and ambition never dwindle for too long, no matter how many rejections you get. They are like a fire drenched in water that keeps burning, defying the laws of physics. 

I love how inhumanly sensitive you are – the touch of a feather can make you flinch, the sound of snowfall can deafen you. You feel like an electrical wire with no insulation and I know sometimes this makes your life a living hell. But your extreme pain means you can feel deeper love too. It also means you can sense other people’s emotions better than they can for themselves. You’re like a medium, as an astrologer once told you.

I love how brave you are, not because you don’t have any fears but because you’re so full to the brim with them and you still do it, feel it, live it anyway. 

I love how you sleep alone every night, even though the sole sound of the toilet flush makes your heart feel like a rocket headed for space, trapped in your body.

I love how you try to weight-lift like Arnold Schwarzenegger, write like Kurt Vonnegut, think like God, and look like a Candice Swanepoel.

I love how taking care of your fears is a full-time job and yet you manage to have a real one too.

I love what a big part of yourself you keep only for yourself and how there’s this private island of your secret wishes and sacred desires that only you have access to.

I love how you can’t sit down to read without a pen, or without having at least four books prepped next to you.

I love that you’re so self-aware that you constantly see all your crooked thoughts and wicked motives and you try so hard to feed the good wolf and not the bad one. 

I love that you have absolutely zero idea how to chill. You’re also the least easygoing person, like, ever. But you’re really pulling it off and getting away with it. And that’s not easy.

I love that you can squat as much as you weigh and that you can do fifteen pull-ups.  

I love that you are as loyal to your goals, to your friends, to your routine as dusk is to dawn.

I love that you always try to milk pain for beauty and to grow your mindset, even though sometimes it feels like fighting against gravity.  

I love that when you go to parties and feel “too pretty” you worry about feeding into the insecurities of others.  

I love that you’re learning to say no and to place your boundaries even though it feels like having windshield wipers beat inside your chest.

I love that you can’t work a marketing job or fill out Excel tables or do anything that doesn’t set your soul on fire.

I love how when you see your ego in action, you try to kill it and then you notice if it’s the ego trying to kill the ego. Did your ego write this post?

I love how everything your friends have ever told you gets etched into your brain forever, how you remember details about their life, and how you keep a mental diary of their dental appointments and traveling plans.

I love that, as your bf once told you, your schedule is more complicated than the PM’s because you take into account your energy windows, meal times, and the Chinese calendar.

I love how alone you are 90% of the time and how rarely you feel lonely.

I love that you listen to the FT podcast for fun and that once when you were on a work trip you locked yourself in the toilet to study all the African capitals because you felt you were wasting your time at this stupid marketing conference.

I love how you dream to live this life fully and yet you never leave your house.

I love how you’re trying to rewrite your story again and again until you fall in love with the ending.

To Reality,

With Love,

N.