Dear 2019,

What I hope for you is that I can continue the journey I started this year. That I can create the life I’m building. That my new home can become a safe home where I can talk about my struggles as much as I can talk about them with mom or Pol. That I can build a safe and supportive relationship with Noortje and with Judith, just as I had with Pol. I hope my daily life can become easier, with less fighting and war. That I can keep recovering until I am ALIVE. That there will be days where I won’t be dissociating and that those days become my ‘normal.’ I hope I will have the strength to keep going with whatever life throws at me. That I can keep working on becoming whole and that I will be able to experience that more and more. As long as I can keep growing as hard as I did in 2018, I’m happy. I’ll give anything to be alive. I hope I can find the strength to confront my dad and that it will help me heal. I hope I will be able to be more and more human. That I won’t be a 1000 pieces. That there will be more days where I feel safe enough to be present. That I can get to know myself without dissociation and trauma. Whether it takes 1, 3 or 10 more years. As long as I can keep fighting as hard as I do, I have faith in the future. I have so much to give to this world.

I will keep doing whatever I can with all I have.

Love,

Tessa

I wrote this letter to the new year on December 31, 2018. Today I felt like sharing it, because I have been working so hard and felt that I have accomplished so much in this letter already. I wrote a new letter today. I will keep that one for myself for now, but hopefully, I can share that one too in a few months.