Day Thirty: Your Face In the Mirror

Jessica,

I'm not entirely sure where to begin with you. Sometimes I love you. Sometimes, I hate you. Sometimes, I'm disgusted with you, and sometimes, I'm proud of the things that you have proven you can accomplish. Either way, I have to live with you every day.

You're at a huge crossroads right now. Don't let your fear keep you from making friends and getting involved at your new school. Don't let your cynicism keep you from participating with the people that want to chat with you and be your friends. Don't let your obsessive need to play it cool stop you from enjoying stupid activities. Make the choice to have fun. People will like you a lot better if you do.

Don't be ashamed of what you're going through right now. People have trouble, people have problems. This is a normal part of life. Sometimes, as you pointed out in that post about Chinua Achebe (and seriously? Eww.), things fall apart. If this were happening to anyone else, you would do your best to help them through it and teach them to love themselves despite their circumstances. So, why does that not apply when it's happening to you? Stop being so hard on yourself! Learn to love yourself again. You used to know how. When you lost that, I don't know, but you need to find it again.

Don't let your negative body image control you. There are people out there that think you're beautiful. Hell, you got hit on last night for Christ's sakes! You know what's "wrong" with your body. You know how to fix it. You can either make the choice to do it or not. It's up to you. Just stop using it as an excuse not to participate or a reason to assume that people don't like you. You assume that people can't accept you before you even find out if they will or not. It's your excuse to keep them at arm's length. STOP! Give people a chance to show you that they like you. Like yourself!

This could potentially be the worst year of your life. Everything sucks, you're broke, and you're lonely right now. I want you to go out of your way to make this the best year of your life. I want you to make an effort to get involved. I want you to make friends and be happy. No more lonely tears. No more cynical blog posts. Make a move! Be unique and fun! Make an impression with the people at the dorms that doesn't involve the fire alarm going off at 11 PM. Be a friend. You're good at that, but I think that sometimes you really forget that.

You're confident. You're beautiful when you want to be--meaning when you're not scowling. You're intelligent and witty. Try to be those things more than you decide to be the lonely girl who makes people feel stupid by calling them names with the biggest words she can think of at the time. Do yourself a favor and use those powers of observation to see the good in people, not the bad.

Love,

Yourself.