Hey, so I know that life is really hard right now. There is a lot going on and a lot changing and everything is completely stressful. Your friends feel like they are miles away and your family isn't as supportive as they should be and nothing seems to be going right in your love life. In fact, nothing seems to be going right at all. You are worried about your living situation and your education and basically, everything that you are going to do ever. And you feel like you don't have a right to not feel okay. You feel like you could have it a million times worse. You could be homeless or completely broke. You could have no job or you could have grown up in a country where you didn't have access to the opportunities that you do. You feel guilty for not being happy — but you shouldn't.

Life isn't going the way that you want it and you just feel like crying all of the time. The little things that used to make you happy don't really do much for you anymore. Anything that seemed to be going right feels like it is falling apart. I get it, I'm right there with you. But no matter how bad things are or how much worse they are going to get, we are going to get through it. You are going to make it through this. Things cannot stay bad forever, I promise you that. You are going to figure it all out, you are going to kick yourself in the butt and work on the things you need to get done.

Change is the number one most terrifying thing in the world. Your whole freaking life is changing and you feel like an idiot for not having it all together. But you don't need to know everything right now. You don't need to have it all together because, really, no one does. All you really need to do is focus. Focus on you, focus on your life, focus on the things that you need. If you feel like something you are doing isn't working...fix it. Or try to fix it. All you can really do is try and make some sort of change in your life. And you can do it. You are strong. You are wonderful. We know that this is all going to be just fine.

It isn't going to be easy. Oh god, it is going to be hard. It's already feeling really difficult and we have barely started here. But hey, you've got this! You are going to work as hard as you can at your jobs and you are going to save all of the money that you can and you are going to make it through this. And you are going to kick ass. We have been through what felt like the end of the world before and we survived. In a year or so, this is all going to seem like a piece of cake. At least, that's the hope, isn't it? And we will have bigger problems then, I'm sure. But there is nothing that we can't get through.

Don't forget that you are strong & you've got this. Just keep swimming, kid. Just keep swimming.