Dear Child,
It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.
I know who you are, and I know why you cry in the corner. You’re more sensitive than the rest, and therefore more perceptive. You’re 7 years old, and feel a great sense of abandonment and loneliness. You’re anxious and scared a lot of the time. You feel there is no one who truly understands you, you feel there will be no one to care for you and love you. Your mom is sick and sleeps a lot, your father tells you he has a hole in his heart, your cousins live far away, your best friend stops inviting you to sleepovers because you keep getting sick on Fridays (FYI you’re going to throw up while saying the pledge of allegiance this year) and your sister…she’s the one you yearn to be close with, but is the one who causes your tears to fall the hardest.
It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.
You’re 11 this year, the past 4 years have been rough. 3 years ago numerous doctors studied you, and investigated why you were the way you were. Why were you getting sick? They labeled you with an “anxiety disorder” and put you on medication to fix your “problem”. This pill makes you gain weight and feel out of control. You get tortured at school and belittled at home and become angry. This anger brought on more doctors and more pills and gave you more side effects. Things will start to spiral as your environment becomes more and more unpredictable. You will suffer from depression and the medication you’re prescribed will cause you to develop Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), as a side effect to taking a daily dose. You will start to suffer in school.
It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.
You’re 13 this year, you’re still in pain. A part of you wishes you could end it all, but all of you understands’ that you could never cause pain to your family. You believe in something greater, you believe you will get through. You know you love to make people happy, and smile, but you just can’t smile yourself. You try to fix your family, you want stability and security, but you have none. You try to repair what’s broken but you can’t.
It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.
You’re 15 this year, this will be the year your life changes, your perception of reality rocked. You will witness the end of your parents’ marriage. You will scream and beg your sister to take you with her before she runs out the door and drives away without you. She will leave you. You’re alone and forced to watch your mother tell your father she has proof of his 15-year affair. You watch your father sob for the first time ever and you make a promise to yourself that day, a promise you hold onto for 10 years.
It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.
You’re 20 years old, and you’ve found your groove. Four years ago you left home to start fresh. You left for a new environment. In the past 5 years you’ve become strong and independent, discovered and fell in love with Mexico, traveled Europe, saw a play in Shakespeare’s theatre, stood on a wall seen from the Moon, became a true athlete, learned the value of healthy food, made solid friendships, became a mentor and a leader and took yourself off all medications. You are finally able to say and believe that you love yourself and you are truly confident in your beauty, strength, heart and mind. A year later, you will be confident enough to stand in front of a college psychology class and read a paper you wrote which shares your biggest fear (or so you think)– an inability to trust and feel safe with a man, a fear you’ll never open enough to receive love. You read this allowed to 30 strangers, and as you read the words you’re not sure how the past will affect your future, but you’re fearful.
It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.
You’re 24 years old, you live in Sydney, Australia with your college roommate, have a spectacular job you couldn’t have dreamed of a possibility having before moving, and a supportive family network who knows your heart. You are in grad school and join the Global Leadership Program. You attend a seminar. You walk in and sit next to a man who will facilitate a true and needed change within you. It will take two more years for this change to come to fruition, but it will come and you will be better for it. You will travel to Turkey, and start to feel for another, and open up. He’s the first you meet of your kind. His heart is big and mind strong. You will enter into your first real relationship.
January 2011 will bring in the New Year with heartache. Your relationship with this man will end and you will feel horrible. You will feel it is your fault. You didn’t know how to believe in love. You weren’t ready. You didn’t understand what it was like to be cared for, you pushed feelings away. You got scared, you felt trapped, you felt abandoned, you crumbled, you spiraled and you became someone you’re not to push someone you cared about away. You didn’t believe. And most of all, you held onto a promise you made almost 10 years before…
It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.
Conclusion is on its way…
owhataworld 