To Teenage Sally.

Hello you! It’s older you, age 26 from 2022. I just want to start off by pointing out how much love you had and how much love you put out in the world. No one has a big heart like you or will understand it. You put others before yourself every time and because of that, you got hurt. Just know that hurt went away and we’re focusing on healing it everyday. You grew up really fast, maybe too fast. I know it felt impossible to avoid. I don’t even think it could have been avoided and because of it you decided to live your life and have as much fun as you could. Which resulted with bad school grades and rejection college letters, regretful decisions, relationships with the wrong people and even some abuse. Life experiences that you didn’t expect.

A lot of good also came from this time era too and we were able to take more from that and put it towards who we are today. The rejection letters gave you more freedom to choose your own life path and not the one you felt like you had to take. The regretful decisions lead you to better understanding and a better way of thinking through things before doing them. Relationships with wrong people taught you what kind of people you wanted to surround yourself with and the red flags to avoid. The abuse gave you strength and a voice that you are not scared of using, you protect people in similar situations and your beliefs are very strong. Everything showed you how life really is, the reality of things. You are a big foundation of your future.

I want you to know that things that you didn’t accomplish in this part of your life really doesn’t matter later. You make things work, you problem solve, you actually have a good head on your shoulders, even though you don’t think you do. You made real friendships, lifetime friendships. It’s actually a lot of our 10 years friendship anniversaries this year or the next. We’re still working on things we didn’t accomplish before, but it’s more along the lines of what we really want and not what was expected from us. The love you poured out is reciprocated back 10x from all the babies, you helped show all these little girls what it’s like to have a loving auntie. Showed them what unconditional love is, that’s so much more than what most would be able to achieve and you did it that young.

The most important thing that you did was rebel and did what you wanted to do instead of what was expected. As an adult now, I praise you for that. It was very hard and a lot of tears were cried, even some now, but we’re in a good place. We’re good now. I’m here to remind you that you are worth everything, you are not a disappointment, you are enough.

To Teenage Sally, you are everything to not only yourself, but also to others.