I know it feels like the world is against you right now. How everything feels so heavy amongst your shoulders as the things you love start to disappear.

You fad in and out of daily conversations. That little voice inside softly whispers “you’re not good enough.”

Panic echoes through your veins, tingling down your limbs, up your spine while your heart starts to pump faster than it needs. Everything feels like it is spiraling out of control. The perfect path you wrote yourself starts branching into other directions.

You're tired.

The congested air floats beneath your minuscule nose hairs, pressure thumps upon your lips. You feel small. The simplest tasks begin to swallow you whole. You hear nothing but your own breath while your heart sinks to your toes. Everything is wrong, but no one would ever know.

You smile through it, you let it all build up, sit on your chest as it weighs you down. You fade, your mind runs a million miles a minute, pacing back and forth from one failed attempt to the next. You start to forget everything, leaving behind things you love and need for your basic survival. Nothing feels as it should. You crumble.

Don’t. That voice that repeats over and over again, yeah— that has got to go.

Listen very carefully; you are good enough.

Just because the world feels like it’s against you right now doesn't mean it is. So your life plan isn’t working exactly like you thought it would, so you're graduating and you thought you had it all together but turns out you don’t. Does anyone?

You are not a failure. The job search is so incredibly difficult. It might take you one application, or it might take you 100. It will take time, but you can’t give up. You can’t run away. You can’t sit in your bed and sob all day. You need to keep going.

You are so great. I mean, look at you. You have all these crazy hidden talents, like hello… do you see how good you are at making these intangible emotions into raw and real words? You feel things, so deeply; and you can put them to paper. Yeah you have an anxiety attack every time you have a test in front of you and it might take you 20 minutes to find the square root of 17, but hey… we’re not all perfect.

Creatives do not do well with limitations. You overthink, you over feel, but you know how to express it. You know how to turn things into artistic masterpieces, you’ve been published over fifty times at the age of 23… hi, that says something. You’re humble and one of the friendliest most supportive people out there, if you just let down your god damn heavy cemented walls.

What is the point of them? Remember that time your whole work team told you that you light up every room you walk in? That’s because in Florida you did not have walls. The boy who kicked you down is gone now and there is no reason why you should let what he said you hold you back.

Esse quam videri, to be rather than to seam to be. You have so much potential, go out there— get that voice out of your head and embrace your last month of college with everything you have. Stop letting yourself sit in the background of things. You are so much better then that.

Don’t forget to turn your lights on. The dark is a scary place, as the walls elapse and block the light, you have it in you to brighten the cinderblocks in between. Do not sink to the dried paint, do not be afraid to turn your lights on.