Dear Future Me,

I hope you are happy. I hope you have crushed all your fears into dust that lines the roads you’ve traveled, put an end to the constant battle in your head, and turned all your scars into something beautiful. I hope the world around you is a kinder one. I hope you still haven’t forgotten to discover the beauty in life and share it with the world. I hope you still carry your hopes in your pocket and wear your dreams on your sleeves…and I really, really hope that some of them came true.

Leah Bartlett © 12/30/11

Dear Past Me,

I am so proud of you for trekking through all this life’s chaos with your own two feet, but when your legs get too sore and your mind grows too tired, please ask for help. Take more chances. Ask more questions. Stop trying to be perfect. Introduce yourself to the interesting stranger, tell the captivating artist with the sweet smile how you feel, free your worries to the ears of someone else. Make a list of the reasons you shouldn’t do something then do it anyway. Do not convince yourself that it can’t change – change it. Never settle for less. Work harder. Play harder. Love harder. Don’t look away.

Leah Bartlett © 12/30/11

“Let The Rain” – Sara Bareilles

This song, to me, is ultimately about bravery and second chances (and third, and fourth…). Until a camping trip to Virginia Beach this past summer, I never realized just how much the rain can wash away if you let it.

“I want to darken in the skies, open the floodgates up. I want to change my mind, I want to be enough. I want the water in my eyes, I want to cry until the end of time. I want to let the rain come down, make a brand new ground. Let the rain come down tonight.”

We all have fears. We all feel pressure every so often to live up to a certain standard that is set for us, whether it be by ourselves, by people in our lives, by the media. We all want to be brave in the face of these fears and insecurities and things that weigh us down…and we can. We are given a clean slate every single day, every single minute, to change our minds. To change our ways. We can even change the entire course of our lives.

The rain can ruin your barbecue plans, soak your brand new sneakers. It can cause car accidents and it can flood people’s homes. The rain also allows us to survive. It is nourishment and cleanses and hydration and even strength. The rain is a lot like our struggles, our wounds, our scars. If we aren’t careful, they can destroy us, but if we allow ourselves to see through them…we realize they are beautiful.

(Source: Spotify)

I just want to crawl out of my skin and let someone else in to clean up the mess I naturally left till the last minute. My legs are so sore from all this running and my arms are growing weak from trying to reach all these well-marinated dreams that I will never quite be capable of grabbing. I am getting so tired of hauling around these bags beneath my eyes, silencing my tongue with my teeth, scratching tracks into my thighs hoping if I carve hard enough, the fear will slough off like a soggy pair of socks that makes me second guess my steps and no longer keeps me warm.

I swear if I try on someone else’s, it’d probably be a much better fit. I’d know all the right things to say and when the critics looked my way, I’d stand taller and more beautiful than before when I wore that torn up wrapper: a wall held together by tissue boxes and bubble gum repaired one too many times after 19 years of windstorms and car crashes and monsters under the bed; a rag that soaks up the teardrop-shaped spills others left behind and scrubs away the rust that nobody even bothered to look beneath… 

But maybe, just maybe, those foggy eyes could see how close those helium-balloon dreams really are if I point my arms to the sky a little longer, if I stop my legs from trying to trek the easier path, if I allow the words to escape my mouth. I could let those scars serve as a roadmap of the forks that reassured me, the cracks that taught me it’s okay to go a different way, and the hills that helped me realize what I’m fighting for. And when I trace them with my fingertips on another restless night, I will realize that this skin really does look great on me.

 Leah Bartlett © 12/01/11