Dear Self,

As your twenties come to a close let’s reflect back on the past decade…

A decade that will have majorly impacted your life moving forward.

A decade that ate you up & spit you back out whole again.

A decade that hurt but also brought joy.

A decade that brought people in & out of your life.

A decade that taught you valuable lessons as well as allowed you to be a teacher to some.

A decade that influenced many people who pretend not to notice you today.

A decade that matured you into the woman they all see.

A decade that held opportunities to achieve your goals & create new ones.

A decade where you had to weed out the real from the fake, including “family”.

A decade that taught you what heartbreak feels like but more importantly a decade that brought you true love.

A decade that taught you your discipline & integrity were not in vain even if others don’t move that way.

A decade where you quit more jobs than you could count because your needs & self mattered more.

A decade which you stood tall in, to fight the generational curses amongst your family & took leadership to make the necessary changes. Only to realize it takes guts & courage to do this work, so you had to learn to be proud of yourself but also to be kinder to yourself.

A decade where you learned to put yourself & mental health first.

A decade where The Single Lady & TSL💋 were born & torn down.

A decade where MML made her presence known.

A decade that would lead to a new chapter for rebuilding & rebranding.

A decade where your truth was told & you didn’t give a fuck who was upset by it.

A decade that you learned to stop making excuses & hold others accountable instead of passively sweeping things under the rug.

A decade full of uncomfortable but necessary growth.

This is just some of the key highlights of the past decade but… one of the biggest lessons learned here was to let go of fear & past hurts.

Staying in survival mode has been your main coping mechanism for years because well, it seemed safer to be this way.

Building walls higher & higher to avoid invasion, digging graves within yourself of all these buried & suppressed emotions.

Feeling inadequate to love because of your father’s lack of love for you which in turn forcefully taught you not to miss out on love because of him again.

It took getting into a healthy relationship to realize you don’t need to fear the person you love so long as they respect & love you back.

You’ve learned that your past traumas don’t define you, but instead pulled a warrior out of you who embraces her journey & all aspects of it – the good, the bad, & the ugly.

Last year for your 29th birthday you spent half of the day with your mom in a hospital while she got a procedure done before having her breast cancer removed…

Later that night you all went to dinner (who knew that would be the last time you would eat inside a restaurant – 02/19/2020) & she was happily there, smiling, singing, enjoying course after course as if she didn’t just have a metal bracket placed inside her breast that morning…

In this next decade hope & pray that you can possess half of that strength when you’re faced with life.

Today is just as much her birthday as it is yours.

The day you were born, a mom was born.

At 21-22 years old her life changed & she never didn’t do what needed to be done.

A decade where she should’ve been living carefree & figuring things out was devoted to working hard to care for you & you’ll never be able to say thank you enough.

Remember posting a photo of yourself last year & captioning it “Twenty Fine”?… you’ll come to realize during these last 29 years there were lots of things that were not fine…

Things you’ve addressed, things you will have made peace with, things that honestly didn’t deserve your time, energy, or attention but throughout it all… you are fine because you know who you are.

You know now that other peoples shortcomings, lies, insecurities, & burdens are not for you to carry.

You know that by the grace of God, Spirit, & your Ancestors you are covered & here for a bigger purpose.

Your bigger purpose will be led by faith & never forget that you’re worthy of all you receive, even when nobody’s clapping for you.

You are capable of all things Melanie.

You will achieve your goals, you will be happy, you will be wealthy not just in money but the most important kind of wealth which resides in your spirit, & you will have that stable & loving marriage/ family that you’ve always wanted.

The universe has your back & will continually work in your favor because of the love you constantly put out & onto others.

Don’t stop being yourself, don’t lose faith or give up when things get hard, continue to stand 10 toes down.

The Lord said weapons will form but he did not say they will prosper.

You are the blessing!

Here’s to 30 years around the ☀️, 🌙, & 💫!

Love always,

Your higher-self 🙏🏽❤️🧿