To: All the women who deny themselves, or don’t even know what they want for themselves, who have been too caught up in being something for someone else—
Progress isn’t becoming prettier. It’s becoming wiser with your energy. That’s real beauty. Reconcile the voices in your head. Give them less jurisdiction. Many were not planted by you. Silence is more valuable than pettiness. You deserve more than unnecessary resentment and criticism. Loving yourself is… telling yourself that regardless of what you’ve accomplished, it’s okay to relax your shoulders. Go outside and enjoy the sun. It’s okay to come back to what you are working on later. You are worthy of more than worry. You are worthy of patience and calm. They ask too much of us. We don’t have to conform to when you no longer are the career woman, the scholar, the creative, the mother, wife, cook, homemaker, and the world forgets you, you’ll have much more to remember yourself by. You’ll see yourself in the ivy that climbs up brick buildings, in the kids’ laughter playing in the street, in the flowers you take home from the supermarket. You’ll see your innocence, your beauty, your expansion, that you are more than one thing or anything. You are free. Do you see the value in treating something so precious with care? Be wiser with your energy.