To My Dearest Daughter

There's just so much that I love about you and so much that I want for you, Sweetheart. I want you to have the best of everything and I want your life to be full of experiences and love and laughter and although I know you will have conflict and heartbreak, I want you to be able to look back and be happy with yourself. You will have some regrets but we all do, but I mostly want you to be proud of yourself and how things turned out.

Today, I want you to be proud of who you are! I want you to be confident in yourself and trust your gut and let God control your path. I want you to set your goals high and dream big! Don't underestimate yourself and never settle! Don't always be a people pleaser, say NO sometimes and most of all be BRAVE! Take chances and try new things. Believe you can achieve whatever you want. And as hard as this if for me, Go Places! Experience life outside of our small town. I will always worry about you, but I want you to appreciate home and the only way to do that is to GO! Meet new and interesting people, take the first step and say hi. Get to know people of other races and places.

Don't stay in unhealthy relationships with friends or boys because you're too afraid to be alone or too afraid to hurt their feelings. You deserve to be around people that uplift you, support you and you can be yourself around. You are too amazing to lower yourself to be surrounded by those that don't appreciate you. A real relationship is between two equal people that love and accept each other despite their faults. God knows who He wants you to spend your time with and He gives you hints and tries to tell you. Listen to Him and don't be afraid to follow His direction, even if it seems scary. That's part of growing up.

My incredible daughter, in order to be truly happy, you HAVE to be you! Be the girl God made you to be; goofy but smart, silly but serious, kind but sarcastic, makeup or not, swimsuit or sweats, lazy or crazy. If you have to change or be someone else for someone else, then you will never truly LIVE nor will you know true happiness. You are so wonderfully and perfectly made, my sweet girl! A beautiful gift from God, my adorable baby growing into an amazing young woman with your whole life ahead of you! And at sweet 16, what a time to be alive! Take any blinders off your gorgeous green eyes, step back and look around and take control of your life. I know I'm legally still in charge, but I'm letting you go. I'm going to trust you. You're a smart girl with a good head on your shoulders so what would you tell yourself right now? What would you tell that girl in the mirror to do to truly make her life better? If it was your sister or friend, what advice would you give them? Be honest with yourself! You owe yourself that much. You owe it to that strong, incredible girl who has made it through so much adversity to be who are you and do what do you really want. Make changes where there needs to be changes. You can't see sunshine through the clouds so don't be afraid to push the clouds away and enjoy the sunshine!

Just saying your name makes my heart swell! That's my girl! My daughter! To say it makes me proud! To write it makes me proud! A beautiful name for a beautiful girl, both inside and out! I love you to the moon and back, my precious girl!