Bella CavicchiThis is a letter to my younger self, and to anyone else who needs to hear this message.
Sweet girl, you’ve got a long, hard road ahead of you – but it will get easier. From three years of life to now, what you know as “normal” will be the reason for many of your struggles later on. Every Friday and Sunday until you’re 14, you’ll ride in the car for 2 hours (round trip) to follow custody orders.
You won’t stay in one school long enough to make the kind of friends that grow up beside you. Instead, you’ll be blessed with siblings. By age 9, you will have attended 3 different schools, each in different counties. By age 14, you will have attended 3 more.
By age 10, you will lose all security in what you used to call “home.” After an hour drive, you’ll ride another hour in a whole new direction and be told “this is your new home.” It will happen this way at least 3 times, so don’t get comfortable.
You’ll never really learn what friendship means because you’ll never have a true chance to develop this kind of relationship. The social anxiety you feel from starting at new schools so many times will follow you into adulthood because you’ve never experienced comfort in new settings. You will be loved by everyone you meet, but you’ll forget how to love yourself.
By age 10, you’ll try to rise up and stand up for what you believe is right. You’ll remember this moment vividly for the rest of your life. This is when you learn your boundaries, but struggle to learn how to enforce them.
You’ll be respectful, yet persistent, in asking for what you want: a better life for you and your sister; a life of consistency and predictability. But sometimes in life, you won’t be met with the same kind of grace that you pour out. That white picket fence you built around your heart will be replaced by a solid brick wall.
You will see a beautiful representation of love most of your young life, until it fades away, leaving you confused about what love really is. When this love ends, you’ll find yourself running from everyone who loves you, while simultaneously building on to that brick wall around your heart.
While on the run, you’ll meet many people who have lived your life and lived again, showing you that there is hope. You’ll learn the importance of vulnerability and how it can shape the relationships in your life. You’ll make some of the greatest friends you could have imagined, and they will love you for simply being you.
One of the hardest things you’ll have to do is forgive the person who will never give you an apology. You’ll wonder if they even realize they hurt you, or if they feel justified in their actions. Because of the person you are, you won’t ask for an apology. You’ll struggle to even tell them that they affected your life in any way.
This… will be your biggest challenge in life. Truly, anything else is manageable. You’ve been through a lot as a young adult, but nothing compares to this. The hurt from this will linger. Your trials will all be rooted from this. Your biggest healing will be of this.
In your search for “home,” you’ll realize that home isn’t between the four walls that house you. Home is being surrounded by people who love you – blood or not. Home is feeling safe letting your walls down and not fearing judgement.
This is a reminder that YOU are the only one responsible for your life. No matter what has happened to you, or who has had a memorable impact on your life, you are only responsible for your actions. People will hurt you. They will deceive you, lie to you, and mislead you.
None of that is a reflection of you and what you deserve. That’s a reflection of them and their decisions. You don’t have to live with others’ mistakes, too. Use this letter to remember why you feel the way you do, not as a crutch to blame others for your problems.
Your feelings are valid, and they can be stemmed from your traumatic life events. So instead of feeling sad about what has happened, choose to appreciate the events for the beauty that came of them. Your beauty is in your strength, your heart, your vulnerability, and your loyalty.
This all happened for you, so go make an impact in someone else’s life.
Love,
Bella
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