own it.

You know, I've always been in love with words. I write down the things you say in testimony meeting, and I actually liked reading the American Crisis last semester.  I take notes on every book, I save every letter, and I've never loved a painting you didn't talk about first.

You know, I've always been in love with words, but I wasn't always brave enough to say that.  I remember being in Junior High, sitting in eighth-grade english, too nervous to even open a notebook.  I wanted to write everything, but I didn't want you to know that.  

See, I was that little girl who always had something to say but was too afraid to write it.  Mostly because I was afraid of what they would think.

And I never wanted you to see because it's not cool to be passionate when you're in the eighth grade.  You're not supposed to care about math or art or words.

Thankfully, I'm not in the eighth grade anymore, and maybe it's just part of growing up, but I don't feel that way anymore either.  

I am nineteen though, and your tears made me think that maybe learning to be yourself isn't as simple as just growing older.  Maybe, sometimes, it takes some help too.

When I was in tenth grade, I met my best friend.  She loved biology and the teacher who taught it.  She loved goat milk and had two goats that gave it to her.  She still loves old-people candy like Good 'n Plenty and Raisinets even though I tell her not to every day.

Biology and goat milk and Raisinets are not and never will be "cool", but that's what I've always admired about her.  She never listened to what she was supposed to think.  She just loved what she loved, and she loved that she loved it.  

And that is the greatest gift that she could have ever given me because it allowed me to do the same.  It was okay to fill notebooks with words about the American Revolution.  It was okay to love that old truck even if the handles always fell off, and the roof leaked sometimes. And it was okay to pray when we were scared, and it was okay to be good at dancing badly, and it was okay to cry happy tears even though they're usually unnecessary.

Thankfully, I'm not in the eighth grade anymore, but sometimes I think that things haven't really changed that much since then.  There are still people who'll tell you what to think and who'll tell you how to act and who'll tell you what to love and what not to love. 

But someday you'll realize none of their voices really matter.  There isn't a right thing or a right way or a right time.  

and it's amazing how much power came when I realized that.  It was okay to love everything that I always have.  and it was okay to be passionate.  It was okay to be excited about semicolons.  It was okay to cry during "What Would You Do?".  It was okay to be really honest, and it was okay to really care.  

Passion really is everything.  Find the thing that you love, and own it.  Commit to it.  Be excited about it.  Tell the world that you're excited about it.  It's okay to be that crazy girl who loves going to real-estate conferences or that weird boy who's really into technology and reads up on apple news every morning.

And it's okay because our hearts don't beat the same, but all that means is that that passion inside you is yours.

And that's something to be proud of.  



-Linds