We're half way through February and it has taken me nearly 2 months to complete this letter.

2015 said you'd be scary but I felt optimistic anyway. 

You drained me emotionally at times and other times I never felt so free. 

I feel like you've taken a piece of me then you brought me back up and shattered me again. You made me stand in the mirror not quite sure who was looking back.

You taught me how to be brave, how to not let the past dictate my present and future, you taught me how to be stronger. 

Tick tock. 

I was never good at living in the moment.

Tick tock.

I was never good at accepting everything won't be perfect.

Tick tock.

Until you came. That is.

Yet, still, nothing made less sense.

I've had people tell me what they wanna do, people pushing me to what they want me to do and pushing me and pushing me slowly making me forget who I am. And so much more stupid drama. And, they didn't even care as long as they got what they wanted. As long as it was perfect in their eyes. 

And who was I to refuse them? 

I was just the "secretive", misinterpreted and misjudged by the people 'close' to me girl. 

You see there's a big difference between me being secretive and me who just simply do not trust them after everything they put me through. That's where they got me confused. You want to know the truth? I didn't trust them enough to tell them, I didn't trust them not to ruin what made me happy like what they've been doing all these years. And because of that, they couldn't accept my reasons nor did they care. 

Now they question where I got my bravery from. They don't want to face the fact that the reality is they shaped who I am today so they come up with excuses, to themselves and to me, to seek validation that what they did was okay.

All these years, I asked myself how can the people that's supposed to teach you how to love make you so afraid of it?
Over the years, I'd let the guilt they drowned me in consume me because, like they said, I wasn't good enough. 

They pushed me to become what they wanted, not what I needed to be. 

They told me anything that goes beyond the whispers of their voices was wrong. That what makes me happy was wrong.

So dear 2016, 

Thank you for making me see the truth. Thank you for teaching me to stop living for them and to start living for me. Their definition of who I am does not define me. Just because I don't meet the perfection in their eyes does not mean I wasn't made in God's image. 

Whilst finding myself, I lost a lot of people along the way and it never felt more right.

The taste of freedom and happiness of the knowledge that I could be who I want to be touched the tip of my tongue. It's bursting with flavour.

Dear 2016, keep the piece you stole from me. There's more pieces of me to find over the years.