•I Hope You Choose to Laugh•

Dear Self, 

One day you will wake up, and everything will be different. Not the gray chevron curtains in your windows or the pastel sweaters hanging in your closet. I mean your feet will hit the cold, hardwood floors in your studio apartment and the fog will lift. Everything will make perfect sense. 

You will go to take a shower and smirk at your newly forming abs, and your finally-growing-out long hair in the mirror. You won't tiptoe around your reflection, you'll stop to admire the body you've worked this hard for. The body that never gave up on you with all the nights you've put it through. 

You will look at your phone and for once, your stomach won't sink because "My Honey" is still not a notification on your phone. You will turn on Pandora in the car and finally leave it on the same channel when Ray Lamontagne's "You Are The Best Thing," comes on. You might even belt out the chorus a time or two....with the windows wiiiiiide open. 

You won't have to crawl out of bed and dread going to work. You will find your passion. When doing what you love becomes your job, you will never have to work a day in your life again. That day will come. The double shifts will finally be worth it. And sure, the term "overtime," will forever make you cringe, but you got through it. 

One day that piece of paper you pulled countless all-nighters to earn will be in a frame; in a home you are proud of. In a home you can for once call, "home," and it will actually fit. A home you can welcome people into and tell them to take off their new kicks because you just got new carpet, and you're damn proud of it! 

One day the world will be right for you again. The world will make sense. 

One day.. 

But until that day, I hope you choose to laugh. I hope you choose to drown your tears in hugs from your best friend. I hope you choose to smile when you look in the mirror. I hope you choose to dance like a fool and sing so every neighbor can hear you in the shower. I hope you choose to stay curious about the world around you. 

And one day...

I hope you're strong enough to choose to let love in again. 

Your independence that you've fought so hard to get back, that piece of your heart that you've tried so hard to fill, will not be lost. 

Because one day, you will wake up and realize everything is different. Maybe true love finds it's way back, maybe new love shows up; to wake up with two sets of feet hitting the hardwood floor, realizing that change is often the hardest decision, but the most beautiful decision. 

Ever Yours,

Heart.