Tag: strength

An Open Letter to My Younger Self

Maybe I’m all up in my feelings but I just want to say something for the younger girls out there struggling.

Struggling with identity, struggling with faith and strength, feeling defeated and used. Wanting (and maybe even planning) to give up.

I was you. I was you a million times over. And it’s hard. God I know it’s hard. This world will shatter you a thousand times before your feet even hit the floor in the morning. It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. It will wear you down and wear you out. It will break you. You will question who you are 1 trillion times before you hit 20 years old. You’ll look in the mirror and not recognize who is looking back at you.

All the while you are just putting one foot in front of the other.

Listen here beautiful- I’m so dang proud of you. I’m so proud of you! You woke up and fought the demons that wore you out the night before. You woke up and DECIDED to truck on when all you saw was bleak and grey. You decided to continue on when it would have been so much easier to just—stop being.

I’m so glad you are here on this earth today.

Because one day, if you keep fighting- and I do mean FIGHTING tooth and fucking nail fighting you will make it. You will wake up one day and you will have everything you prayed for. (Ok sure I’m not a millionaire but BOY AM I RICH!) I wake up to a man that loves me- and I mean the kind of love you gave up on when you were about 14-17 because yeah boys are stupid. This man is a God fearing man that would jump in front of a bullet to save my life- this I know without question. And I’d be pissed at him for doing it because that would mean he was quicker than me and I didn’t get to save HIM.

This man will choose you day after day and will love you when you can’t even love yourself. And will be your friend when you can’t even be friendly to yourself. Then this man will become a father and you will see that hope in his eye and you will share this unexplainable feeling of terror and excitement and love for the life growing within you (or someone else- adopting, surrogacy, whatever). Life will change and you will realize you made it.

And you realize this whole new chapter is coming and it’s going to push you further than you’ve ever been pushed and further than you can even grasp. And you will smile because you know that if you made it through the first part of your life (rather alone) you can absolutely break the barriers on this next chapter. Don’t you dare settle. Stop judging yourself for how you had to survive. You are so beautifully and uniquely made. You will make it gorgeous… you gotta know that.

Much love- Chelsee

Overflowing, overwhelmed 


Weight on shoulders, depress, oppress, suppress

Anxiety in laughter, wrapped around my throat – it won today. It successfully overwhelmed its vessel. 

My knees hit the ground like an ultimatum 

Lists overwhelming my mind, my ability

Failures singing like the birds in the trees, never silenced 

Fear like shackles on my wrists and ankles 

Anxiety fogging my mind, overwhelming my senses. 

The debris and destruction surrounding me. It is a fact, I’m on the ground. 

The smoke rising like protestations

Muscles straining like it’s a physical fight, I stand 

One foot in front of the other

Sun peaks through the dust and smoke, I depend on you

For now, I fear, I fail, I fall, and falter. But every fight has a victor and victim. 

I never liked the taste of being a victim. 

My knees may shake, but I will always get back up. 

I have too much depending on me to give up.