To my beautiful, broken girls.
You are someone’s inspiration. You are someone’s crush. You are someone’s smile.
You don’t believe me? I don’t expect you to. Most of us cannot believe we are worth someone’s thought process.
But I know it’s true. Because I see myself in each of those statements above.
I have a friend. She is beautiful – that’s not me being biased, she is tall and willowy with striking curls. And yet she has never been kissed. She will probably hunt me down and kill me for saying this if she ever found out. She is witty, clever, smart. I watch her and cannot believe she would be friends with someone as well… hopelessly disorganised and messy as me.
If anyone was going to be their own hero, it was her. She is the “mum friend” she is the one who will call back the waiter if your food is cold. Not her food – that’s rude. Your food though, that’s another story.
When I was in year ten, I would look at her and think, “she’s got this life thing sorted.” Ever thought that way about someone? Looked at someone and thought that if anyone was going to be okay – it was them. She got her license on her birthday, she was clever, all the teachers loved her, she somehow got her homework done on time. She had all the prerequisites, and to top it all off: she was kind and patient and loving.
She was my inspiration. I looked at her and thought, if she can do it – I can too.
But then.
We left high-school and our world got bigger. We were scooped out of the fish tank and told to take a shot at the river.
Slowly the puzzle pieces of her life were picked up by a toddler and dashed to the pavement. The score she wanted wasn’t high enough – so she got into another one and planned to transfer after. She entered university (or college you weird American people) and began classes.
She began to talk about hating school. We all hate school. She stopped going to classes. She procrastinated a highly stressful amount. She stopped planning assignments. She stopped caring about assignments. She stopped submitting them.
My highly capable, funny, witty and caring friend began to doubt what she wanted.
She left school.
And I… I was confused. She was confused. Was everything she did only to please her parents? Did she even know what she wanted? Did she know who she was?
Did I?
And in that moment. In the moment she told me she had left uni and felt not only better, but elated. I realised we do not have to run the same marathons.
We are not computer programs that provide instant gratification and pathways. We are not computer games with a storyline and playthrough. There are no questline pamphlets after graduation.
Yes, freak out about that. That’s okay.
But then realise – that provides you with more than one yellow brick road.
My friend is in no way less capable or clever then she was before.
But now she’s being honest with herself.
Better to do that now, then to work towards something you’ve convinced yourself and others that’s what you want – only to come out the other end and realise you’ve spent ten years fighting a battle you didn’t actually want to win.
But this isn’t the end.
There are still monsters.
Now you need to think.
What am I good at?
What do I love?
What do I treasure?
What do I want to protect?
Do not only carve out a life from Earth's ecosystem. Make your own and connect it.
We are more than sad stories – but only if you decide to be. You are more than someone’s scoreboard, a parent’s bragging rights, even a friend’s inspiration.
You, like my friend, are a story. But you have to decide what kind. There are many genres after-all, mine is proving to be some hybrid mess of comedy failures and dashing adventure.
What are you going to put your time in? Find something that lets you hope for tomorrow’s progress.
Because a future is not made in one year, or even ten. A future is made by wanting one and walking towards it.
Walk that yellow brick road, fight those winged monkeys and appreciate what you’ve got now. Because you’ll have something different tomorrow.
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