An Open Letter to my YA Self

Letter to my YA Self

I’m incredibly thankful to Ginger over at GReads for inviting me to take part in this fun and exciting project! When she mentioned it to me, at first I didn’t think it would be something I could do… it’s incredibly daunting, but then I thought, just maybe, it would be an amazing challenge to myself to try and share all of the things I’ve learned over the years and relate them back to my life now. It would definitely be a wonderful way, especially at my age, to look back and come to terms with so much. So thank you for the invite Ginger!

Dear YA Jaime:

I so wish you had been a reader when you were a young adult. I mean, it’s totally okay that you weren’t but I think you could have really learned so much from so many of the characters that I’ve met and gotten to know over the years.

I think of how much you were involved in sports and spending time with your friends instead of focusing on boys and dating. How you struggled with your parents divorce and how despite how everything may appear, it affected you in ways you’re still uncovering and I know … I know with all my heart that there are stories by Kasie West, Emery Lord and Jessi Kirby that could have helped you cope and understand these things.

I think about how over the years you’ve struggled with body image, and how you’ve struggled with respecting yourself despite an abusive relationship and all the baggage that entails and I know that you could have found guidance and acceptance in stories by authors like Sarah Dessen, Trish Doller, Rainbow Rowell, Katja Millay and Katie McGarry.

I think about how you’ve done one of the scariest things in your life… become a parent… all by yourself, and while it may be a struggle and it scares you every single hour of every single day, you wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world… and I wish… I wish you could have had books from Katie Cotugno, Sara Zarr & Megan McCafferty to show you that you’re not alone.

But most of all, I wish I could impart on you how important your friends will be in your life. How no matter the distance between you, you will hold tight to the people who have been through all of these things with you… and it will be okay. You may not end up with the boy you thought you would… you may not get the degree you thought you would… you may not even end up living the life you thought you would, but the way it all works out in the end, well that’s just the way it was meant to be, and it will be okay. I promise.

The lovely Ginger is doing a giveaway to celebrate this amazing project – make sure you enter!