* Warning: naughty language ahead:

Dear world,

The biggest lesson I have learned up to this point in my life is that I will f*ck up.

And that sometimes I will f*ck up in such ways that it is unpleasant and painful for not only myself, but probably for others as well.

I will trip and fall so hard that I will make others around me feel as uncomfortable and tender as I do on a perpetual basis through my f*ck ups.

My f*ck ups will be colored in red and covered in shadows that paint against moments of confidence—my f*ck ups are carried with me day in and day out. I breath, “this is f*cked,” and exhale “f*ck” with a silent, ever-beating heart that knows that one day I will be less f*cked.

In some situations my f*ck ups will baffle me and challenge me so hard that I begin to question myself. To doubt myself. To maybe even hate myself. And in other cases my f*ck ups will bring such madness of sorrow and uncertainty that at times I won’t even recognize my own behaviors, my own emotions, let alone my own face.

Because I have practiced so hard to bury my soiled hands in the fear of f*cking up even more. And in other instances of living in this wonderful thing called life, my f*ck ups will bring microscopic moments of certainty mixed in with concrete apprehension, but it will leave me with a glimmer of hope.

In myself.

And in my f*ck ups.

But overall, through all those detrimental fleeting f*ck ups, it is most salient to learn that I can not be paralyzed in the face of defeat. The defeat which those who take risks will inevitably encounter.

F*ck ups are the experiences that we learn from in order to grow.

And I will always grow. Because life, I am a f*cking flower.

I am not a dainty flower, but a f*cking flower that grows softly with such vulgarity and pride that I will always bloom in between clenched doubting fists.

And I will grow f*cking hard. And I refuse to be held back in my f*ck ups. Because they are nothing but f*ck ups, and they will never define me.

All my love and my f*ck ups too,

J.

Relephant:

On Getting (Nearly) Everything Wrong & Ending Up Happy.

Author: Jasmine Smith

Editor: Khara-Jade Warren

Image: Author’s Own