To Every Past Version of Myself

Written by: Dalyah Schiarizza

To every past version of myself, 

You’ve always been beautiful. Beautiful when you’ve cried over your hair, your nose, your height, your stomach. You’ve always treated yourself too harshly. Too harsh about school, the future, your decisions. You’ve always been too accepting. Too accepting of others’ actions, of adult responsibilities, all the things you were too young for. I still am all of these things, but I know it doesn’t hurt me anymore the way it hurts you. I wish I had the cheat code for you to get through what’s weighing you down, but ultimately all that helped was time. Time to persevere, overcome, and heal, and you did every single time. You adapted and overcame all on your own, but there’s so much I want to tell you. 

Inside and out, you’re the most beautiful soul even when you don’t feel like it. Your features come from generations of Black women who want you to succeed, who love you despite never meeting you. Your physical being is connected to the culture and family we have always wondered about. Your beauty is a marker of all those that came before you and an inspiration for those beautiful women who will come after you. So despite not complying with the beauty standards around you, never having brilliant blue eyes or light straight hair, you are physically magnificent. You’re going to fight with yourself over how you look, I still do, but we will eventually love the way we look with no exceptions ever. We will still struggle to eat some days or look at ourselves without wanting to pick and criticize, but we will recover with time. 

If I could ask anything of you, it’d be that you’re kinder to yourself. Ever since you were young, too young to understand, you’ve been fighting off stereotypes, overworking yourself. To this day, it still kills me that I have to show how smart I am to be worthy of respect, but it was too early for you to fight this battle. You deserve to be young and ignorant, but you were too bright. You noticed how surprised they were when you spoke or read so well, but never that surprised when your white friends did those same things. You saw how people looked at you with that beautiful curly hair in stores like you’re a thug, an eight-year-old threat. So aware, and I wish you weren’t at times because you deserved peace, to be a kid. You just knew how they looked at you but never understood why. Please just be kind to yourself, you can’t change everyone around you, but you can do what makes you happy. You can be young, happy, and careful, but still, be a kid. I hope you don’t take it as personally as I did, that there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. There is nothing wrong with you. You were too sweet, too good; it was everyone else’s assumptions of what you should be. All I ask is that you do what makes you happy, pay no mind to those assumptions and just live for you. I can promise you’ll eventually understand and start to live for yourself and your happiness. 

As I think about you, I realize that finding our place in this world made us too accepting of conditions we shouldn’t have been. You’ll experience more times where you’re too kind to the ones who will never respect you. It won’t be until you’re my age that you realize that and improve, wanting to protect the younger versions of us. You’ll take care of those around you so much that you give up parts of yourself in hopes of finding your place. Even now, I still sacrifice myself for others, for that sense of belonging. It’s a belonging that we’ve missed, from not fitting in with white or Black crowds and not knowing anyone else like us. I wish I could tell you that this desire to belong will disappear, but I’m not that far along. Right now, I’m finding my footing. I’ve met our forever friends, and I know I’ll meet more. I’m starting to find people we can relate to, which we need, those who can share what we’ve lived through, and it’ll bring us both comfort. For now, I hope that you can just get through it. I hope that you can exist in spaces that aren’t the best for you until you get to my age. Once you’re here, you’ll feel so much better, and it’ll be the start of the life we’ve always wanted. 

Nineteen isn’t the ideal age to impart wisdom, but I want to write to you often. I want to let you know that it’s all going to work out, even when it feels like it never will. At nineteen, I’m still learning and growing, fighting for my place and making myself happy. Time will go on, and we’ll get older and wiser and look out for each other. I’ll tell you that every triumph, heartbreak, and adventure was worth it regardless of the outcome. Please be good to yourself because I love you endlessly and want nothing but happiness for you. I promise I’ll keep writing to you, giving you the love and wisdom you need in those hard times. Those times when it feels like the future is so questionable, too unpredictable to go forward, I’ll be there for you. No one will ever love us like the versions of ourselves. We’ve got each other forever. 

Love you always, 

Dalyah