My sincerest apologies to all the young souls who feel like they harbor a graveyard inside them.

A graveyard of: repressed emotions, unattainable desires, and haphazard talents — things unique to you yet experienced by all at different intensities.

I understand that you can’t understand the reason behind the pretense of people. The concern that they show requires refinement, I mean, with such abominable acting skills!

I am aware that the phrase “You have it better than others; things could always be worse for you” is like invalidating the cloud above you that rains anytime without warning — just because for others the cloud is bigger, with a raging storm. I know it hurts, and I am sorry that the world has yet to become the better place we want it to be.

I know it’s the hope that lies in the future that serves as a beacon to hold on to the present for you, just like that impoverished fellow who warms himself by simulating the sensation of heat through the imagery of a fire on a numbing winter night.

You know winter turns to spring, but I know winter comes back and we must revel all the seasons.

It’s been a long time since our existence, yet it is such a short time if we compare it with the emergence of the Universe. Your life unto this very second has just been a succession of moments. I hope, as you read this sentence, you experienced multiple flashbacks. Like the time when you cycled at the speed of lightning to buy those lilies for the person you love, just to see a smile as wide as your ghastly scraped knee, or the time when you casually told someone how you love country caramel popcorn, and the next day they brought it for you; just to see the stars shimmer in your eyes. These are the moments that became memories; these are the moments in which you’ve truly lived your life.

Hold on to these moments and nurture them. Think about them often and re-live them because they will sow and grow the seeds of happiness in your heart, and that happiness will grow on that graveyard and silence your plights.

I know that a sapling of regret is already growing in your head — of missing those guitar classes, giving up football “because you’re a girl,” or giving up ballet because “man-up dude!”; basically, giving up any talent you didn’t rot at, for reasons that now seem rotten to you.

Hold on, now it’s time to wield this sapling out because these decisions have made you the person that you are today. The feminist in you has awoken because of these decisions, the parent in you has become an encourager to your young daughter who wants to play all sports, and there is a guide in you that will give the right advice on those music classes to your siblings.

We’re all in differently aged bodies, but we all will always remain young souls. Forever, too young to let a graveyard with ghosts from the past find a home in us; too young to let our misery and outside cynicism misguide us; but always old enough to transform our melancholic selves into passionate writers, lovers, and dreamers.

It’s time we love ourselves. It’s time we forgive ourselves. It’s time we make the world the better place we want it to be.