I should be mad right now, so fucking pissed and jealous and bent out of shape.

But something happened to me between 9pm and midnight last night.

Like the part of the puzzle you’ve been struggling for hours and then you finally get some pieces to click into place, allowing you to finish that mother fucker in no time.

Like a goddamn code was cracked, or installed, or made into what it needed to be for you to move on and be stronger than ever before.

Next level, please.

Let’s fucking do it.

They told you you weren’t there yet, weren’t up to snuff, but you needed that. Needed to be bitch-slapped into a rhythm of realization.

Because of it, the world started spinning again, if not faster than before.

You allowed yourself to be alone and understood what that truly looked like. You found a cheerleader, an insider. Spilling the beans on what you looked like and how you are perceived – information you needed. Intel you wanted from someone’s opinion that you trusted. Real words that displayed the progress you’ve been making; how far you’ve come.

You’ve been traveling for longer than you thought.

And your writing, oh your writing. It’s so beautiful and deserves to be shared with so many people. You are going to make your ocean flow so beautifully, jostling to the high and low tide in a cadence so perfect not even the moon will know what to do with you.

She’s so proud of you right now. Your girl. You first became acquainted with this side of her recently, but the whole of her has always been there. The other sides have been guiding you, the dirty and tarnished ones, but this side of her is the first to let you in on this little secret. And you are finally getting to know her on an intimate level, but only because you were getting to know yourself.

You keep seeing yourself at open mic nights, playing that guitar in a darkened room and singing to the unknown. What are you getting up to in there? Who are you singing to? Who do you see? Do you see no one? Why are you so alone in there?

But you know full well so many people are right there listening to you.

And your body, your face, your mind – they are fresh and protruding faster than your heart can handle. You’ve reached the places of confidence you had forgotten about. The vigor and swagger you had back in seventh grade when feeling your firm abs between crunches at volleyball camp.

You lost so much of that confidence in so many places of your life, and now you are finding the missing pieces. But they are petrified from latency, some rotted and some fucking disintegrated in front of your very eyes before you could even get to them.

But now you found a brand-new bag, one that is full of various rocks that resemble the past and what you were hoping to recover. But it’s not recovery, it’s rebirth. It’s regrowth. It’s reimagining yourself to the place you’ve always wanted her to be, the place you knew she could be.

But imagine how long that’s going to take.

It’s going to be hard as hell.

You might not make it.

Challenge accepted.

Imagine how buried you were before this. How you were so worried. How all your dad wanted from you was for you to profit from your skills and not worry about the rest of the world. You stopped listening to him because he wasn’t setting an example worth watching at times. It was hard for you to be that kind of person without him putting himself out there for you. He came around again, eventually.

Now that you are detaching from things that don’t matter, you’re starting to see the magic that you can create, that you yourself have created. It’s so lovely. You have nothing to lose, even though people are trying to make it feel like it’s a loss (they really aren’t, they are also trying to hang on to the parts of you that matter to them, and that’s really cool as well).

Your mind deserves a mountain that you can climb, so find a fourteener and do that shit. But you might not jive with that one, or that one either, or even that one over there. But each one will teach you something and be the journey you’ve always craved.

You are so fucking special, I hope you know that. You are one of a kind. You are Jamie. You are the prettiest, most special person you’ve ever met. No one is like you, no one can do it like you. Please don’t ever lose that.

You will feel like you are losing it at certain points, but nothing is a loss, only a gain in experience and knowledge. Share that knowledge and teach your kids how to share it. Teach them how to stand on their own.

But first you must shed your skin. Shed it until it’s raw, red, and stings like a son of a bitch. Shed it until you fear someone’s touch because it might hurt like hell and fuck with your mind. Pain might overtake, but you can do it. You are so good at this. It’s such a pretty thing what you’ve done. You are so good. You are so good. You are so so so so good.

I love you so much. I love you more than you’ve ever thought about me loving you before. I love more things about you than the things that I don’t. There are so many things I love about you that I hope you know this. I love how you are so smart, clever, peppy, confident, you never give up, you are gentle, you meet people where they are at, you hate awkward silence and aren’t afraid to speak up, you are fucking hilarious, you are spectacular at listening, you are determined as fuck, you are good at damn near most everything you do, you are braver than a bat and you are fucking beautiful. You are caring, you are nurturing, you are patient when you want to be and impatient when you don’t want to be, you acknowledge the need for loneliness, you enjoy yourself so much it’s hard to look back and be with other people who don’t, you open yourself up to other people in a way most people can’t, which makes it so hard to find other people because it takes such time.

But you’ve found a lot of people. Found that writers are some of the best fucking people you will ever meet because they have the same types of feelings. Not all writers, but a lot of them. Stick with them. Also artists, and musicians, and craftsman. People who care about art and their crafts are some of the most special people you will meet. Surround yourself with these fancy mother-fuckers, get down in the dirt with them and play. They want you to be there, you want them to be there.

You are well aware of what the fuck is going on, and you are almost about to be more aware of what the fuck is going on. So do it and know that you have nothing to prove to anyone but yourself. Continue to lead yourself to this place of euphoria and exploration and self-realization.

Embrace the mess, the moments with your face in the mud and the ones where your blinded by the rays of the boiling sun. Without those moments, you’d still be flopping on the floor like a dead fish.

You are no dead fish! You are alive!