To: All of the people that have made me sad, angry or heartbroken
Thank you.
Thank you for causing me all of those emotions. Thank because I would not be the person that I am today without you. Thank you for causing me pain, because after the tears, I felt renewed. I understood the meaning of life after having such hard experiences. Life is not about the struggles you encounter, but it is about how you come back from them. Some people are meant to be in your life for a reason, others will stay for a season.
To the girls who bullied me growing up, thank you for making me sad. Thank you for your mean comments, your purposeful laughter in the hallway, and for leaving me out on the weekends. Thank you because you showed me that life is composed of so much more. Life is more than how much makeup you wear on your face, whether or not you have the latest clothes or who your friends are. You are better than people who need to bring you down to make themselves feel better. To be truly content, you need to embrace your inner beauty (pimples and all), wear clothes that make you feel confident, and most importantly, make LOYAL friends. Make friends that will be there for you no matter where the road takes you and that could not say anything bad if they tried. Thank you for making me sad because out of sadness, I was led to my best friends and became incredibly proud of who I am.
To my coaches, competitors and teammates, thank you for making me feel angry with myself. Thank you for making me sweat my butt off, force myself to get into shape, making us run sprints after we did not play our best, telling me I was awful at my position and scoring countless points on me. Thank you for forcing me to push past the limits I had engraved in my mind. I was angry because I could not keep up or was not as good as the other girls. Thank you for it all. Thank you because you helped me get into the best physical shape of my life, you taught me to push myself in all aspects of my life, and taught me what it means to work for something with your whole heart. I learned that the limits we create in our brains can only be overcome by us. I learned that if I am ever going to prove someone wrong, I have to show them, not tell them I am going to do it. Randy Pausch says in his book The Last Lecture, "When you are screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they have given up on you."
To the guys that broke my heart, thank you for letting me experience heartbreak. Thank you for lying, ignoring, and disappointing me. Thank you for making me feel like I was never good enough and for putting me in the "friend zone". Thank you because you showed me that I deserve better than everything you put me through. You pointed out everything I do not want in a lifelong partner. You showed me that no one deserves to have their emotions played with and that whoever loves me, should love ALL of me and not parts of me. Loving someone is more than being attracted to the physical, it is knowing that you can trust them. That person should be there for you and appreciate every second that you spend with them.
Thank you to all of the people that made me sad, angry and heartbroken because you brought me happiness, determination, and a new understanding of love. The best way to be happy is to turn negatives into positives. Do not let anyone steal your joy and be thankful for what you have.
" God bless the broken road"...that led me to right now.
Sincerely,
A girl who has moved on
