Inyeon
Dear Gerald,
I’m starting this letter by saying you are safe, it’s not your fault, you matter, and I’m proud of you. As you grow older, you will receive a wide range of life advice and learn many things. You will develop a great community of people who love and support you dearly. You will move across the country and land in Seattle, your new home; it will feel like home and where you belong. Where you are seen and heard. You’ll love it. You’ll fall in love with the most incredible person to grace this earth. You will learn daily what true love looks like. In that process, you’ll learn how to love others deeply and authentically love yourself. You’ll succeed in school and live a successful life.
However, all of this isn’t without challenges. As you travel across the country, you’ll lose close friendships as you build community and move away from friends and loved ways. Your hometown won’t feel like home and will feel more like an ache or a ghost town. You’ll experience heartache, loss, and disappointment until you and Ari meet. Over the years, you’ll struggle with your mental health and start identifying what’s important to you and what life and success mean to you. None of this will stop you.
Since you were five, your mind protected itself. You developed so many coping skills to navigate the world. You learned how to be resilient. You know that you will find a solution no matter the challenges. You also learned to harness your empathy. You’re incredible at holding space for others and understanding their struggles. Over the years, many people of all ages have shared their challenges, and you’ve remained present.
In 2014, you begin your healing journey. You’ll find yourself in a dark place at the lowest point in your life, sitting across from a therapist in college. You reached out for help. You sought after the very thing that had a terrible stigma against it: therapy. At that moment, you hated yourself and everything. You were so young when pain entered your life you didn’t understand why it existed. You tried everything in your power to pretend that it didn’t exist. You tried to hide it; You were ashamed of yourself. Every day, pain showed up, reminding you that something inside wasn’t okay. You wanted to fix it, but the pain continued to change. There are times it went silent, and you thought it was gone until it showed up again. You tried to end it, to put yourself to rest by ending your own life.
Despite struggling with C-PTSD, anxiety, and depression, you learned that you matter and that your voice is essential. Even though society painted your skin with hatred of this world, and despite the judgment by others believing that you cannot and should not exceed, your skin is beautiful. “Your melanin is more night sky than a black hole.” You learned that healing isn’t linear and doesn’t make you weak. There is strength in recognizing that you need help, and there is power in seeking the necessary resources to address mental illness. Healing sucks but is worth the journey. You learned that you have a fantastic support group and deserve a seat at the table.
Even though, at times, you thought you didn’t know what path you were on, you’ve always been in the right direction explicitly designed for you.
I’m proud of you for
Being a first-generation student
Being the first in your family to get an MBA
Setting boundaries
Building lasting relationships with CEOs and business owners
Moving to a new state
Accomplishing every career goal
Advocating for yourself and others
Trusting your intuition
Healing
Discovering what’s important to you
Experiencing peace and doing what makes you happy
Loving all parts of yourself
You are victorious and will always be. You’ve always dreamed of being in this spot —and you’re here now. You have a village of people that love you. You have all the resources you need. You have the most amazing wife who supports you, “and as king and queen, you both will create constellations that litter the sky and remind you beautiful things come from the dark.” You are safe, home, can breathe, and are the best version of yourself.
When things don’t make sense, you want to disappear and disconnect from everything and everyone. Please read this letter as a reminder that you are a light. A light that shines bright and continues to discover hidden and lost parts of yourself. Remember that every part of you is essential and deserves love and acceptance. Every aspect makes you who you are and is never meant to be removed, shamed, or pushed aside. You control your life and get to choose what’s important to you. Trust your intuition. I’m rooting for you.
