Lauren Jarvis-Gibson

Dear 2017, Please grant us with the strength we need when we are deep into despair. And please grant us with the hope we need when we are close to giving up.

Someday, maybe a year from now or five years down the road, we will meet again. You will stutter and shuffle your feet across the gravel, and I will smile and ask you how you have been. And on that day, you will want to tell me that you’re not ok, and that you’re sorry, and that you want me back. But when that someday happens, I will be gone before you can say a word.

Forgive yourself for causing your own heart pain. For ever telling yourself that you weren’t worthy and for ever causing your heart to break. Forgive yourself for treating yourself in a way that you would never treat anyone else. And forgive yourself for being human.

Let 2017 be the time in your life where you can look at your past and acknowledge that you can’t take anything back, no matter how much you want to. Let your goodbye with him be final. Let your story end. Let it be.

Stop worrying about things you can’t ever change. There is no use worrying so much about things you will never be able to take back or change. Instead, focus on today and do your best. That is all anyone can ask of you.

We say we are only human, and that we are weak because we are breakable. But my dear, we all break sometimes, but we always can find a way to be reborn. We always can find a way to keep going.

As I say a goodbye to 2016, I will say goodbye to you too. You, the man who changed my life. You, the man who changed my heart. You, the man who showed me how to love.

Let 2017 be the year you stop telling yourself you can’t do it. The year you stop telling yourself that you aren’t worth that job, or that boy, or that life. Let 2017 be the year you decide that you are worthy.