A letter to a young girl…

Dearest girl,

I saw a photo of you the other day. You were at the lake with your grandparents and your Papa was taking pictures because that’s what he loves to do.

You were sitting on a driftwood log on the beach with the breeze lifting your hair just a bit and you were looking very intensely into the camera. And I thought to myself, “What a beautiful girl! Why isn’t she smiling?”

Then later, when the photos had been shared on Facebook, I saw your comment. “My hair tho…” and that made me sad. Because what I want for you to know, more than anything else in the world, is that you are beautiful! And while I know in many ways you are still a girl, I know that you, like your mother and your grandmother, are a bit of an old soul and you will be able to understand what I am about to tell you.

Because as a girl, I felt things very deeply and was not particularly strong, I listened to the wrong words. Oh, I heard the good words too, the words that told me I was smart and good and kind but I let the other words be louder and I held onto them more tightly. I believed them more when they told me I was fat or that my feet were too big or that I looked stupid in my glasses. And those were the words that followed me.

I wore shirts that were too big because I didn’t want anyone to look at my body. I wouldn’t try new things because I was afraid of looking foolish. I watched from the sidelines while everyone else played games and had fun because I was afraid I wouldn’t be any good at whatever the game was.

And one day when I was about 40 (which must seem very old to you) I realized that I was very probably halfway through my life. I had lived half of my life being afraid of what other people thought and I only had half of my life left to live however I wanted, to try whatever I wanted, to be the person I wanted to be. And what I wanted was to not be afraid anymore. I didn’t want to let other people decide who I would be or what I would do.

The harder truth though, was that I was the one who let those words matter more. I was the one who decided that the words of some of the kids at school mattered more than the words of the people who I knew loved me. I don’t know why we do that. Why we care so much about what other people say or think. But the truth is that they don’t think about us nearly as much as we think they do. They only think of us in the moment that they want us to feel bad. They say something unkind and then they move on but we get stuck in that moment and those unkind words repeat in our minds over and over until they become all that we can hear.

It is a cruel trick we play on ourselves.

And it is only a trick. You see, lovely girl, when I call you that I mean more than you are beautiful. You are that too, beautiful, but you are lovely in so many more ways.
You are kind and thoughtful. You are loving and generous. You care about truth and justice and making the world fair for everyone. You have a light inside you that comes from the joy of being loved and having people to love in return.

It takes some people (like me) longer to learn that there is something special and wonderful and powerful inside all of us. And while I am only learning this now, when half of my life is behind me, you can learn this now while you still have your whole life ahead of you.

There are always parts of ourselves that are not quite so lovely as other parts. Jealousy, selfishness, and anger. They are natural and normal feelings but they do not show our best side and they do nothing to make the world around us a better place. Every time something happens that makes us want to react in a negative way, we have a choice to make. We can either give in to that impulse, or we can choose to do better, to be better. It takes practice and we don’t always get it right, that’s ok, as long as we keep trying.

A very wise man named Mahatma Ghandi once said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” He was right. If you want the world to be kind, you must be kind. If you want the world to fair and truthful, you must be fair and truthful. If you want the world to love peace, you must love peace and show it to those around you.

So, my lovely girl, lovely on the inside and the outside, do not worry about the way the wind messes your hair – the wind only cares about blowing wildly. Do not worry if not everyone wants to be your friend, it is better to have a very few good friends than what my mother would call fair weather friends. Do not worry if you cannot do something perfectly, none of us can do everything perfectly.

Love yourself, be kind to yourself, and you will find others who will love you also and will help you to be the kind of person you want to be.

And when the world is unkind, go find your momma for she loves you in a way that no one else can. You do not even need to tell her why you need her, she will probably know anyway – mothers are smart that way. Let her hug you and tell you that it will be alright, because it will be alright if not in that moment then eventually. Know that nothing bad lasts forever.

Now go and be amazing as I know you will be!

Much love to you!