Notification (1) sorry but it was time to let go

Unread Message (1) The Reason I'm Alive to Write This Story

Behind my ditzy Instagram stories that show off a perfect smile, and behind my positive affirmations that drip with savage resilience, behind my looks of unbothered yet focused dedication in any task, and behind that unapologetic braggadocio I carry across my dolled-up face down to the everyday heels I wear – these stunts only scratch the surface of what goes on in my head.

There is more to my life than superficial desires and materialistic things.

This stunting and flossing is not my 2018.

2018 was the year of my survival story.

It was the relapse of an illness that made me feel unimaginable pain until my body turned numb. It had me question if life was still worth living. It had me wonder if overcoming tomorrow's struggles was enough to prepare me for a future that was dimly lit.

Everyone has a story where they almost didn't make it – an untold tragedy where a rock-bottom moment threw them off the boat and they were given a choice to swim or drown.

For some, that moment happened within split seconds. For others, it was a slow, dreadful countdown of "when."

I'm still writing my survival story – these pages are filled with the paper cuts of today and yesterday. I'm in the midst of my journey.

Each time I rise out of bed is a win.

Each time I choose to live is a victorious fleeting second that puts me farther from the end that awaits.

But openly sharing my survival story has gotten easier. I've received hundreds of messages from strangers around the world that explain how my stories saved their lives, how my stories are a place they come to on a bad day, and how my online acts of vulnerability help silence the scary voices and lessen the aches that they feel will never fully go away.

I get asked why I share the most private parts of my life – on and off line:

When I had nothing to offer, being able to serve others through sharing my experiences has been the most self-fulfilling reward.

In fact, the past two years has tested my will to live more than ever.

I have new growing pains that prove I survived among the darkest nights alone where I murmured prayers for it all to end: the feelings of worthlessness, of not being enough, ashamed of mistakes I've made, crying to flush out the unsettling sickness in my stomach that I know will never completely leave.

From trying to explain it to people who don't understand, to sharing stories with people who have seen darker days, I discovered shifts of perspective. These were pivotal moments that had the power to sway someone's choice towards life.

I've opened to people where there was no digital screen to divide us, where they only knew a certain side of me based on their own personal judgements, and I chose to dissect those "versions of me" and showed them parts they were missing.

I reached out to them with hope that they'd listen and hear my story. I didn't think I'd become that close to people who were once passing strangers but now I'm incredibly grateful we have created lasting friendships.

I found beautiful friends who showed me how women should actually be treated – not as objects but as valued human beings who deserve to be given time, to be listened to, and to be given recognition and appreciation.

I've found a peace within myself where I know I will always be happy when I'm alone, and that's why I'm okay with letting in special ones who can easily come and go. There's such limited time on this earth with special people you can connect with. Meanwhile, you have the rest of your life with yourself. And knowing this has opened up an endless capacity for me to love and forgive unapologetically, being careful yet open to meet new people by understanding that I will heal from the risks that may lead to pain, and grow from the foolish mistakes.

I'm still scared to slip up, to make a stupid choice where the pain would run deeper into the loved ones around me than the slits in my own skin, or that one day I may choose to blow out all the candles and allow the darkness to finally swallow me up.

I know now that there is more to life than what didn't work out and this has put me in space of completeness. Knowing that it's okay to not be fine makes bad days easier to digest.

I started writing again to heal myself. But I realized this therapy session had enough room to fit a few more friends.

Including you.

If I wrote just for me, I wouldn't have posted my story online. I wrote this because I knew girls were growing up with false narratives about women like I had.

Narratives that convinced me that women were either damsels in distress, mean girls, or had to look and act a certain way. That as a woman, my voice didn't matter.

My voice didn't matter in bed, naked and open to whatever they wanted to do to me. It didn't matter that it was never me orgasming first or thinking that what I desired was an option.

The issues I spoke up about in my relationship were said to be "understood," but my partner's actions never followed through.

I thought that I never had a say because I was a woman. I was "not good enough" or worthy enough to matter.

These false perceptions shaped me and you and warped our perceptions of women and how to treat them. Girls grew up seeing women as worthless, dirty, and replaceable.

So, I thought I was too.

It wasn't until I took notice and paid attention to the small papercuts I felt every single day. I wasn't until I started thinking in retrospect, looking back until I started to move forward.

I began talking about my experience. Conversations started to lift my thoughts off the ground and those thoughts spun into ideas and, suddenly, I found myself in the eye of a hurricane. Everything was spinning around me but rather than getting caught up in the storm, I stood in the middle of it all and could see why things happened and how I could react to them better.

I want you to see what I now see: that life is about tearing the most exquisite things down only to mend them back stronger. It's seeing pain as a process of healing, failure as a part of success. It's understanding that the pillars of strong women were once the cracked bones of little girls. It's accepting that you can't control what breaks you, but you can control how you react to it.

That healing is not about happiness. It is about completeness.

It's being angry. It's grieving. It's disappointment. It's feeling lost. It's finding joy. It's getting excited. It's choosing to travel across the entire spectrum of emotion and being okay with that.

Healing is what it means to be human.

Finding this sense of completeness is ultimately choosing to love yourself and build confidence, despite the setbacks and delays. It's knowing who you are. Feeling right in your own skin is powerful, and once you know this feeling, it's even more powerful to be able to share this confidence and encourage others to see the best in themselves.

That's when I knew this book was more than an online blog or diary. It's about writing a new narrative for women. It's throwing away the old narratives we've been fed as little girls, stopping the constant consumption of media that portrays women as damsels in distress, or mean girls, or perfect, model-sized toys. It's creating an inclusive community through conversation, collaboration, and inspiring emotional resilience.

It's knowing that we will continue to cry, bleed, and make mistakes because we are human and it's knowing we will have flashes of brilliance that prove we are divine too. It's believing we don't have to be stuck in any story, that we have the power to change where we want to go and who we want to be. It's hurting, healing, and loving. It's living through the growing pains until we reach completeness.

From wanting to end my life to accepting a lifelong goal to constantly put love into the Universe and guide others to help interpret what it means to them, I'm putting 2018 to bed by being thankful. Thankful for the ones that push me to keep living.

I've starved my anxiety. I've learned how to react to my depression. I've turned my life around from trying to end it. I'm unapologetically living my life the way I want through spreading love, inspiring resilience, and encouraging conversation.

This isn't the end for me – this is the best I've ever been.

I'm glowing.

For those that make fun of and mock individuals for the certain tools or methods they use to maintain their glow, know those toxic people are so immersed in their own insecurities that their judgements are the reason they will never glow like you do.

It has taken me years to get to where I am, to let go of this socially-constructed need for more and understand life will constantly give, even when you don't ask.

The delivery of my words come with meaningful intent; I wish for you to interpret them however you want. Whatever meaning feels right to you is how I hope you will find use in them.

In 2018, I chose love. I wanted every choice I made to come from a place of love, to act with good intent, to constantly put love into the Universe and deepen my understanding of how others can find it.

Now going into 2020, I don't apologize for what makes me happy.

I refuse to minimize myself to be palatable for those who are uncomfortable with my opinions.

I don't need permission as a young woman to be ruthless in my speech and snap back at those who see me as less.

No one can tell me to lessen my grandeur.

I'm in control of this choice to own what is rightfully mine – and that this is my life.

I don't want to die anymore.

As long as this glow lasts,

I want to live.