An Open Letter to Eleanor...

Dear Eleanor,

I sat and watched you today. I saw you clench your fists in anger. I saw you bury your head in your tiny little hands in frustration. I saw you demand to use the fork on your own without assistance. I saw your eagerness to step beyond the front door. I saw your tears as you were held back.

I saw me in you.

I do not know whether to celebrate you or discourage you.

If I could sit and tell you what I know about myself, with just two weeks until I turn twenty-nine years of age, I would do so. Yet, I look at you, I see me in you, but I do not know enough to pass on to you just yet.

What I do know is that I am passionate and indeed you are too. I have fought hard for what I believe in and at times, I too have clenched my fists with anger and buried my head in my own two hands.

I have cried tears that I never thought would stop and I have never been afraid to say that I have done so. Your tears are like mine. They are of frustration. They are because you want to understand but cannot.

You will never be afraid to show people the rawness of your emotions because that is who you are.

You will fight to understand why things happen, time and time again.

While you will grow up strong, intelligent and successful, you will not always know why things turn out as they do.

You will not have the answer to everything. You will not be able to change situations.

You will not be able to change people into who you want them to be.

You will not be able to heal others of their pain. You will hurt, you will cry, you will feel as though all of your energy has been taken away by situations which are out of your control, yet you will seek to control it, because that is the only way you know how.

You will love selflessly and you will be loyal to the core. Despite the amount of times you will be hurt, your loyalty will not waiver, as this is how you have been taught.

You will sometimes love those who do not love you and you will never understand why.

You will feel lonely among a crowd of familiar faces and you will feel no closer to knowing why.

You will never need to change because you will one day, like I have, embrace the fact that that this is who you are.

Much love,
Your Auntie K.