What I have learned in ten years from where you are now.

I was checking out a cool website, youthvoices, and I noticed a post written by Nichole.  These are my comments, as if written to Nichole.

Nichole, although I don’t know you well, I feel like I learned a lot about you from your post.  This is a quality of a good writer, to be able to let us glimpse into your life and make a personal connection.  I could definitely feel that you are feeling sad and lonely.  As you put it that you life is “screwed up” that you feel “less of yourself” and “invisible.”  Your voice is strong, Nichole.  If you’re anything like me, sometimes when I’m feeling down I just have to let those feelings out.  Once they’re on paper or on a blog, you feel better because you’ve let those feelings go.  Plus, when you do blogging you can make new friends that will relate to you and give you advice to help you feel better.

Even though I’m a teacher, I’m only 26.  I know a lot of those same emotions of you.  Right now, I think that I’m the only person in my class that hasn’t been married.  Isn’t it frustrating how much boys can affect how we feel about ourselves?  Even though we know we shouldn’t let them make us feel bad about ourselves, the emotions are there and they hurt anyway.  I’ve had some boyfriends, but for me right now, most of my emotions aren’t about someone mistreating me, it’s just that there isn’t that “someone” at all.  I get very lonely at times.

The best piece of advice I can give you, however, is about your sentence, “The majority of my life I wonder what is missing.”  You recognize that this is wrong, and it’s making you unhappy.  Nichole, any time that you focus your attention on what is missing or what you don’t have, you’ll be unhappy.  If I went around depressed all the time because I DON’T have a boyfriend, life would be unhappy for me too.  In fact, some potential “soul mate” might not even want to be around me because I would be depressed all the time.  You have to make the conscious choice to find what is going well and what you do have in your life.  I don’t have a boyfriend, but I do have great friends and family.  I don’t have kids, but I’ve been able to travel the world and get my degree.  By focusing on the positive, I stay happy, even when people don’t treat me right or I’m feeling lonely.