TheStoryOfMyBecoming

I was going through my archives recently and found something I wrote before I turned 26. In retrospect, it is funny that my then 25-year-old self was basically giving advice to my pending 26-year-old self. I really resonated with the notes, so I am sharing them with my 30-year-old self, and you. I hope you find it helpful, whatever your age. And that like my 25-year-old self, you seek to see yourself more clearly, are gentler and kinder to your rough edges and recommit to being the best version of you!

1. You have the capacity to feel so much. Know that it only becomes a weakness when you don’t embrace it.

2. Sometimes it might take you forever to  get over something. You know this about yourself. Other times you may never get over it, you just learn to live with it. Those are both ok. You need to remind yourself of this often.

3. Some days you’ll love yourself like nothing else. These are the days when you remember that you are the sun. That your melanin-dripping caramel self is perfection. Other days you’ll abhor the person you see in the mirror. Be more forgiving of your bad days & don’t minimise your good ones as they’ll carry you through.

4. At some point you have to really really learn that your value does not come from other people’s perception of you or external things, such as being conventionally pretty or smart. Your value is in your essence. It’s based on who you are, without the mask, when the lights go off and no one is looking. It is also on who you’re working on becoming. Your job is to daily choose this you & to find the courage to exert your efforts more on her becoming. 

5. You have spent yourself so much on the idea of who are trying to be. I am deeply proud of your efforts & courage. But darling, it’s about time you became kinder to your work-in-progress self. You are changing so rapidly and you need to love yourself  fiercely during this turbulent season. Remember that it’s ok to love unfinished things and to see beauty in the process.