Dear 19-year-old Jordyn,
This year is going to be one of the worst years of your life. You will experience hardship like never before, lose friends, fight for peace, and fight with loneliness.
In July 2019, you will start your nineteenth year with a blossoming relationship that you can see yourself in forever. The guy is from your hometown so he feels like home. This relationship will speak to your love language before you really know what your love language is. It will be fresh, new, and promising but also full of lust. He will check all the boxes YOU’VE created and he’ll always reassure you that he’s here to stay. But one night you won’t be able to sleep, you’ll toss and turn so much and it’ll be one of the worst anxiety attacks you will experience. This intense feeling of anxiety will last for more than 24 hours. Something is wrong and you can’t figure out what it is but your spirit will be deeply disturbed. The next day you’ll get a call and the relationship will end due to infidelity.
In August, you’ll revive a quieted romance and have an experience you would later regret. He’ll say “I love you” and not really mean it but you don’t care, because you think you have in this relationship is what was missing in the last and that’s “love”. But what’s missing in this relationship is something you actually didn’t have in the last one either and that’s respect. Your feelings will be invalidated time and time again and the words “I love you” will sound like they are being forced out of his mouth; but those words somehow will keep putting a band-aid over the disrespect, neglect, and disregard of your feelings. You will verbally fight with him, mostly while one of you is intoxicated, but you both will always come back to the comfortability of each other. This abusive cycle will continue on and off for 10 months.
In September you’ll cut your hair again, almost completely bald, just to feel a sense of control. You’ll feel love all around you but never really feel satisfied. You’ll get new and amazing opportunities but still, feel like you have to prove your self-worth to everyone. Your haircut is seen as daring but it’s honestly a cry for help. Your faith will dwindle and you will long for a love that lasts.
In October, you will go back to your hometown for a wedding you were supposed to attend with the July lover. To alieve your pain, you will search for the attention of the August lover only to end up begging for him to love you and consequently “ending” things. The wedding will hurt and trigger you as the DJ plays the songs that you and the July lover loved so much.
In November, you will end a supposed friendship after realizing your kindness is taken for weakness and that will be the first of many more to come. You’ll get more and more work and school opportunities, but you still won’t feel like you’re enough. You’ll struggle with identity and loneliness and consequently, bury yourself in your work and constant sorrow; but hey, your grades will be the best they have even been, so I guess you can celebrate that.
In December, you will juggle four romantic relationships to feel wanted but you only really like one of them. The August lover is the one you like the most and he keeps coming back like a bad rash, ready to take you on another emotional rollercoaster. You’ll end apologizing for not telling him “Happy Birthday”, but he won’t apologize for constantly causing you emotional trauma. You will find yourself apologizing for having feelings, which is something that’s all too familiar to you, and you know what I’m talking about. The abusive cycle will continue into the new year.
In January, damaging things happen that feel good in the moment but no commitments are made, causing you to feel like you have to wait for the August lover to love you properly … as if you hadn’t been doing that this whole year. You will fail to connect with God at the start of the year and you think God has something good in store for you and August lover. You will dream of fairy tales that have no Godly foundation. Your vision for 2020 is so big but you won’t be able to see past the relationship that you are forcing yourself to be in. The plans you have for your future will revolve around a person that doesn’t even think enough about you and can go on days and weeks without talking to you. You’ll write a blog post about how you don’t ever feel loved back; it's because you don’t know what love is, and you are searching for it in places that will never satisfy you. Your search for love will continue and will manifest itself in harmful habits. On top of all of this, January will be your most stressful and depressing month. Racial tensions will run high, your schedule will look impossible, and you will have a mental breakdown because of how overwhelmed you are.
In February, you’ll be the busiest you’ve ever been. Valentine’s Day will come and go and you’ll be showered with love from friends, but it won’t feel like it. You will apply to your study abroad program and get in. Your acceptance letter will be delayed, how fitting. Those habits that you developed in January come back to haunt you and are worse than before.
In March, you’ll meet new people and get excited about new connections that are no good for you and cause you to act out in certain ways you won’t even recognize. You will cut and dye your hair… and between us… you’ll only do it to get someone’s attention. It’ll work for a short minute, but then you’ll just start to lose interest. Then a pandemic will hit, yes a pandemic girl. You’ll be forced to stay home for the rest of the school year, and you’ll continue classes on this thing called Zoom, which is essentially Gen Z’s Skype. You’ll be confused, unsure, and weirdly optimistic that things are just going to blow over. Things will NOT blow over.
In April, you’ll have a hard time adjusting to being at home and you won’t leave your house for a whole month. You’ll start communicating with the August lover again and you even will tell your mom about him. You’ll feel like since you’re home again, the distance won’t be a problem anymore, but you’ll be wrong. You’ll try to get into the Word of God, and you decide to start with 1 Samuel. Your goal will be to read one chapter of 1 Samuel a day, you’ll fail miserably, and won’t even finish the book but you will still find time for the August lover. You will be unfocused and make plans that God isn’t in.
In May, you will reach your breaking point. Quarantine won’t even make the August lover show you real respect. You will fight for his attention and essentially start to beg for it. He won’t care. He’ll go days without talking to you and not feel sorry about it. You know you deserve more but you keep settling for less. On May 7th, you will end things for good. You will end this nearly three-year-long situationship. I know it sounds crazy because you thought God ordained this. You were sure God told you that this was your husband but in reality, you told yourself that to feel better about the sins you both committed. For ten days, you’ll mourn the relationship and question if you heard God correctly. You’ll ask friends who wanted you and the August lover to be together if you made the right decision and they won’t understand it. They won’t even believe you when you say you’re done with him. No one will believe you. You even start to think that you should unblock the August lover and call him back because maybe you overreacted. Ten days of pure pain. Ten days of confusion. Ten days of unhealthily coping. Ten days of feeling like love isn’t just for you. Ten days of feeling you’re not even worthy of love from anyone, not even God. Ten days of being tired. But on May 17th, you will make the BEST decision you have ever made all year. You will decide to rededicate your life to Jesus Christ. You will give your life and your heart over to God and you will never be the same. You will see an IMMEDIATE change. You will spend time with God before you even touch your phone most days. You will have breakthroughs left and right. God will free you from those addictions that you’ve been hiding from everyone that you thought no one knew about. God will heal you from so much so quick you won’t even recognize yourself.
In June, everything starts to look better. The sun seems to shine brighter. You’ll start to strive to be better, not perfect but better. You WILL struggle with sins from your past; but, you will LEARN and the Holy Spirit will grant you with wisdom that changes your perspective on life. You’ll get excited about the Word of God and thirst and hunger to spend time with Him. Jesus will become your best friend again and your child-like faith will be restored. You will be made new by the grace of God. Toxic relationships will start to shed off you even when you want to keep them. God will tell you to let go of idols even if they are people you’ve been close with all your life. You will make new friends that help you to do BETTER and encourage you with God’s Word. You will be blessed with many things including a DREAM internship helping underrepresented, high achieving college students, a brand new car, and the biggest blessing you will receive is a relationship with God that feels the most real it’s ever been. And FINALLY, God will show you a love so real that it trumps emotion and feeling. This love is something that you will KNOW; even when you don’t feel like you’re loved, even when you feel like you’ll never find a husband, even when you feel like you’ll never be free from something that is holding you from being even closer to God, and even when you can’t trace God, you will KNOW He loves you and you can find peace in KNOWING. Jordyn, feelings, and emotions will come and go; but KNOWING that God is always there and that He loves you always will give you a joy that the world can’t give so the world can’t take away. God took this tumultuous year and turned it around in TWO MONTHS. Ironically, you’ve never had a relationship that consistently lasted longer than two months. So buckle up and get ready for the craziest year of your life, God will put your broken pieces together and you’ll be able to see the masterpiece you were all along. So find peace and joy in KNOWING that God loves you, Jesus is all you need and the Holy Spirit lives in you. God will never make you perfect but God will make sure you keep progressing. You’re a King’s Kid baby girl, so let’s start acting like it.
Sincerely,
20 Year Old Jordyn
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