My Dear Jaymee,

No words can express how proud I am of you for reaching 40 years with your body parts still complete, sanity still somehow intact and fighting spirit still strong. I remember those dark days during your cancer journey where you wondered if you’ll ever get to experience midlife and here you are! Congratulations, woman!!! We f*cking did it!

I know that you’ve been through so much and life hasn’t turned out quite the way you wanted it to be. You’ve always been an over achiever and believed in hitting timelines. You know what you want and you go for anything that excites your soul. And you have a heart of a child… optimistic, hopeful, and animated. Hence, you’ve always been convinced that anything is possible.

But sometimes, adulting can slap you very hard that you suddenly lose your faith in yourself, in the world and in humanity. Oh Jaymee darling, please don’t ever let that kill that lovely heart of yours. There will always be moments where you want to just give up and be like the rest of the world… unkind, pessimistic and selfish. But don’t be. Kind souls are now a dying breed. So don’t ever allow anyone else’s darkness take over your shimmering, joyful light.

I know that you have so many questions about life with no definite answers. And you constantly worry if you’ll still be given time to achieve all your goals and dreams. You always wonder if you are enough, if you’re doing what God ordained you to do to make the world a better place, and if you’ll still have the strength to tackle another hardship that life may throw at you at some point. But learn how to just enjoy and be grateful each and every moment that you’re alive. It doesn’t matter what the future holds or if it’s a series of I DON’T KNOWs that pop in your head when you ask all these WHYs. As long as you’re here RIGHT NOW in the physical world… breathing, laughing, sharing, living and WINNING, you have every reason to celebrate.

You are a WINNER, my beautiful Jaymee. You may not be a billionaire, a Hollywood superstar, invented the cure for cancer, written a best selling novel or anything grand like that but you are a WINNER because you have goodness in you that you constantly want to share to the entire universe and you are truly, truly loved for being a genuine human being.

So please don’t put too much pressure or be too hard on yourself to be “perfect”. There is no such a thing. You’re doing the very best you can to be a kind yet brave global citizen and that is ENOUGH. You are ENOUGH. And let go of any baggage from the past or anything that don’t serve you to reach your highest human potential. Those bad events all happened to teach you, not to punish you. And that made you the strong woman you are today who conquered midnight TV in the Philippines, travelled the world alone and beat cancer twice.

Your life story is beautiful, inspiring and unique and it only gets better from hereon. I know that one day, the great vision you have of sharing it to the whole world in full color will come to manifest. Just hold on to that childlike faith that you’ve always had, chin up, and keep moving that cute perky butt along. From scars to stars, girl to womanhood, bald head to chic bob, victim to a victor and survivor to a WINNER… I know that your very best is STILL yet to come and surprise you right before your very eyes.

Welcome to the fabulous midlife journey, you badass woman! Now GO and show the world how being 40 is done. Let’s LIVE long, WIN strong, stay FAB and ROCK on.

I Love You,

Your Proud Self 🙂