Throughout our lives, we go through so many different versions of ourselves that we try to outrun, because we want to leave that awkward phase as far in the past as we can. However, since I started writing letters, I have realised that I actually don’t want to leave those girls behind. I actually want to write to them. I want them to know that they were always enough.
To The Girl Who Used To Wear Daisies In Her Hair,
I am so sorry. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of you, and the person that you were. You are the version of me that I miss the most,, because you were the one who saw beauty in the weeds and wasn’t afraid to wear it for the world to see. You still see the beauty in them, however you haven’t worn them in years, and for that, I am sorry.
Thinking about you reminds me of a time when my life was full of carefreeness and whimsy. You weren’t afraid to be your whole complete self all the time.
You didn’t yet live in a world where people desperately tried to shrink who you are.
Somewhere along the way, I learned how to tuck parts of you away. Not because you were wrong, but because we thought that making myself blend in with everyone else would make people accept us, and we didn’t want to explain over and over that the daisy was so much more than a weed.
I’ve told myself so many times that this is a part of growing up. This is maturity, and this is just what happens as we get older.
However, in truth, I don’t believe that at all.
Instead I silenced a part of myself that other people could potentially find “weird”. And in the process I softened the part of myself that saw joy in the small things. The part that got excited about the silliest of things.
I wish I had tried harder to embrace that joy and I wish I had told you that the things that people find strange, are actually what makes the world more beautiful.
A part of me thought that the girl with daisies in her hair was naive, but I now understand that that wasn’t entirely true. She wasn’t naive at all. She was brave. Brave enough to stand tall and be “different”. She knew that she wasn’t living the life others thought she should be living or the one that everyone around her was, and she didn’t care, because she was happy.
Although I don’t wear daisies in my hair anymore, I want you to know that you are still here. I am proud of the person that you were, and I still love daisies. Seriously, they make the garden look so much nicer!
So, despite how I started this letter, it is not in fact an apology. It is a promise.
A promise to embrace my weirdness. To appreciate daisies. And I promise to wear daisies in my hair again.