You have to stand by yourself. You have to make amends for your mistakes as far as you can and forgive yourself. You have to put your arms around yourself. You have to love every version of yourself, even those you can’t believe you were, even those you hope never to be again. The mistake I’ve been making is thinking I can love myself now, because I’m “better,” because “I deserve it,” whilst neglecting the versions of myself who still haunt me, desperate for love. I love you, Finn, when you’re thirteen and lying in bed weeping because your best friend just told you she’s moving to another country. I love you when you put “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” on at her leaving party, even though you know it will make you both cry, because you don’t know how else to say “I love you, thank you for being my friend.” I love you, Finn, when you’re fifteen and in the depths of adoration for someone who will never feel the same way about you. I love you when you finally tell your parents about your panic attacks because you simply cannot bear it alone anymore. I love you the first time you get drunk and kiss someone. I love you when you’re sixteen and lying to your parents on an almost daily basis. I love you when you hate yourself. I love you when you try to fix yourself with other people. I love you when a boy tells you you are special and you say you are not. I love you when he tells you he loves you and you leave. I love you when you break him. I love you, Finn, when you are broken. I forgive you for being so cruel. I love you when you know no better. I love you through therapy, through a year and a half of eating lunch alone in the toilets, through the constant despair, through the seemingly unending loneliness. I love you, Finn, every time you hurt yourself. Every time you feel there is absolutely nothing else you can do. I love you when you’re eighteen and you fall for someone within two minutes of knowing them. I love you through the nine months you spend pining after them. I love you when you’re nineteen and you meet the first person you will fall truly in love with. I love you eighteen months later, when you end it for good. I love you when you’re twenty, when you’re back on medication and on your worst day, you book a trip to Japan even though you’re terrified of flying, and even more terrified of flying alone. I love you when you have nothing to lose. I love you when you’re twenty one and someone hurts you for what feels like the first time. I love you when you quit drinking for two months. I love you when you get drunk again and do stupid things. I love you as you’re writing this. Finn, I forgive you for everything. And I love you when you laugh.
I love you, Elizabeth. Even when I think that I don’t.
Or can’t.














