Dear Chess

Dear Chess,

This last letter for April Love is dedicated to you.  It's about the things that you struggle with, despite how awesome you are.  Sometimes you have to be the person you wish you had in life, because ultimately, you spend so much more time with yourself than anyone else.

You are so very special.  There will never be anyone quite like you.  You are amazing and have a unique purpose in life.  While I know you don't know what that purpose is, you will need to trust that you will figure it out.

I know you feel unworthy of life and love.  You need to learn to love yourself, for all your "flaws"and attributes.  Regardless of what anyone else things, you are worthy of your own love at the very least. By showing yourself love, you will be so much better able to handle what life has to throw at you.

You need to trust that you will be ok.  Despite the hardships in life, you will figure it out.  It's human nature to survive.  We, as a whole, would not have made it this far without that survival instinct.

You need to believe that you are not a selfish person.  You may have moments where your survival instincts will kick in, but you are not selfish.  You give of yourself, your time, your money, to the point that you give too much for fear that people will think you are selfish.  Trust that you aren't, and allow yourself to back off a little on the giving.  It will be ok.

You are extremely smart.  You pick things up very quickly, you have two college degrees.  Just because you don't have a job directly using those skills does not make you stupid.  Sometimes you have to make a difficult choice and right now that is staying in a place where those degrees are less useful.  You have so many other skills and any employer would be glad to have you.

Trust that you are a good person.  Yes, not everyone will like you.  That is a reflection of themselves, not you.  The idea that they are jealous seems so far-fetched when you are struggling with their hatred and back-stabbing, but it probably is true.  You cannot change them, but you can ignore them and move on.  That's usually the best course of action.

Lastly, forgive yourself.  You can't keep beating yourself up for decisions you made in the past.  You were ignorant or working off of partial knowledge at the time.  That's the whole point of life's journey; to learn and grow.  If you were perfect right off the bat, you would have no where to go from birth.  It's ok to make mistakes as long as you learn from them.  Today may be difficult, but you can make tomorrow better.

Take it one day at a time, one step at a time.

You can do this.

With the utmost love,

Chess