BeYouBeTrue: The It Girl Diaries

💌 Dear It Girl, I think I’m finally understanding why this hurts. Not just this hurt. Pain in general. A couple of years ago, I lost my brother. And for a long time after that, I don’t think I really knew who I was anymore. Grief has a strange way of making you unfamiliar to yourself. You learn how to function. You learn how to get through the days. You laugh again. You go out. You make memories. You start becoming a person again. And eventually, you realize: I’m starting to feel like myself again. That’s where I thought I was. I had spent so much time trying to find my way back to myself that when I finally started feeling comfortable in my own skin again, I wanted to protect it. I didn’t want a relationship. I actually promised myself I wasn’t going to get into one. Because my last relationship taught me that love could feel like survival. I couldn’t settle comfortably into love. I couldn’t just be. I still felt like I had to be in grind mode. I had to change. I had to alter parts...

  Dear It Girl, If you're reading this, then you're becoming her too... It feels like just yesterday I was sitting in my room at my nanna's, writing away at how I was going to pass all the odds that seemed to stack up around me. I was writing about the little girl who was going through it, like I was going to have the courage and the strength to push through the bullying and everything else that came with it. Looking back, it feels like that reasoning has not changed for me. As I grow older, I've experienced so much more, and chile, I am ready to let it rip! I'm not perfect, but I'm close enough, and sometimes I feel like that's all that matters. I know I have so much more growing and learning to do, but maybe we could help each other along the journey of becoming HER. Hi, I'm Ayanna, but you can call me YAO-LIN(yow-Lin). I'm just a country girl who has been through it all and is still trying to learn from it all. I created this space because I know ...