Oh, girls. If only I could convince you, as you sit there pouring out your hearts, that your hearts are liquid gold, precious and already beautiful. You long for months of soul-searching, for grand epiphanies that will reveal to you the way, that will somehow take your feet and place them on the path to Where You’re Supposed To Be… But life isn’t like that. Only in books, and not even always then.
Listen, sweet girls, to the wise words of your friends. We all change, but the important things always stay the same. Sometimes friends fall away – but the important ones will always stick. Listen to the girls who stick. And listen most of all to that voice inside, the one that prompts you to accept, so unquestioningly, the proffered 40-hour famine brochures, that prompts you so instantaneously to help others, to love them, to care. You are good people, girls. Your hearts are wise. It doesn’t feel like it now, because now you are young and everything feels raw.
But that, not months of soul-searching, is what will make you wise. Wisdom doesn’t come in an hour. Wisdom is the result of the pain you currently feel, of a heart overburdened with caring, of knowing that all you want to do is never hurt another person again, but having to do it anyway, and learning, and moving on. Sometimes, it’s okay to feel unwise. We all do.
You are beautiful, girls. You have big hearts. Listen to them, and you will find your wisdom.
I’m sorry for overhearing.