Are you out there? Are you listening to me? Listen to me when I tell you it gets better. Listen to me when I tell you I know what it’s like to have a permanent stomachache for months –YEARS– because someone is bullying you, because every day at school or work or home or all three is an anxiety dream. Are you good enough? Are you smart or beautiful or successful or popular or thin enough? You suspect you’re not.
But you ARE.
You wouldn’t believe some of the people I know who have felt this way, especially in junior high and high school. People with gorgeous, powerful voices; people with perception and insight; people who can understand complex math equations; people who sing opera; people who are brave enough to keep falling in love; people who are creative and sensitive and brilliant. People like you.
You deserve love and support and freedom. You will have those things. You will.
It gets better. Every year that passes means knowing more, understanding more, having more power over your own life. You’re going to learn who’s worth listening to, you’re going to learn who’s worth fighting for, you’re going to learn who’s worthy of your love. You’re going to learn that one of those people is you. Being bullied is an awful hell; nobody deserves it. You don’t deserve it. You deserve love and support and freedom. You will have those things. You will.
For now, listen to music and paint your paintings or write your stories or build your race car. Feel your loneliness, acknowledge it, find a safe place to be angry about it, then cry and release it. Pour it into your dance or your songwriting or your running or biking. Use it as fuel to propel you forward, away from any belief that your current loneliness defines you. It doesn’t. Your ability to love defines you. Your willingness to love defines you –and it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight or can’t decide. The world needs your kind of love –it’s important, so stick around. It gets better.
Gypsy Hausfrau 