Let me start this by saying that I hope you are proud of yourself. Wherever you are and whatever it is that you are doing, just remember how hard you worked to get where you are. Remember the countless all-nighters you had to pull during college in order to get your degree. Remember all the double shifts you worked just to pay your way through college all on your own. Think about the day you wrote this and how utterly lost and confused you were with your life plan. Wherever you are, I hope you figured it out.

I hope you learned how to be happy by yourself, and that being alone isn’t as scary as it seems. I hope that the wall that you unintentionally plastered up around your heart has been completely and utterly demolished. I hope you’ve learned to accept yourself for who you are. Constantly comparing yourself to others and wishing certain qualities about yourself are non-existent will only tear you down over time. I hope you can reflect on your past and find both peace and serenity. If you can’t, just keep in mind that those memories burned into your mind which make you feel uneasy have only built you up and made you stronger.

I hope this scary and cold world did not harden your delicate soul. I hope that the characteristics that made you who you were the day you wrote this letter still lay deep within your heart. I hope your patience and ability to forgive people at the drop of a pin are still persistent. I hope your respect and hope for humanity has not vanished. Most of all, I hope your ability to put others before yourself remains a top priority for you. I hope you’ve learned to crush your insecurities, and that you’ve learned how to just be yourself. Living with anxiety throughout high school and college was always one of the most demanding and challenging burdens to ever weigh down your shoulders day in and day out. If you learned how to overcome that exhausting and undeniable anxiety, then I hope you take a moment out of your day to be proud of yourself.

I hope you’ve learned to eliminate toxic people from your life. Remember that you don’t need a huge crowd of people in your life to fill that void in your mind and make you content. All you truly need are those rare, few, genuine, loving, and all around supportive people surrounding you to love you unconditionally. Don’t be afraid to delete someone from your life just because you are afraid of them not liking you. In case you have forgotten, you have already learned that you don’t need that negativity in your life the hard way.

I hope you’ve learned to embrace your flaws and learn from your mistakes. I hope you’ve come to peace with how life works. Sure, it doesn’t always work out exactly how you want it to. Hell, it usually comes nowhere near working out the way you want it to. Understanding and accepting that aspect of life is such a huge key to your happiness. I have been taking baby steps to comprehend that lately and I hope by the time you read this, you will have completely come to terms with it.

Most importantly, I hope when you read this that your heart is full no matter where you stand and that the smile you had the day you wrote this never faltered.