Stop settling. For God’s sake.

Stop saying yes to things you hate, dates you don’t want and jobs that you’re not fired up about clocking into.

Stop wearing clothes that don’t make you feel like yourself, living in towns that don’t excite you and buying cheap bras.

Seriously. That is B.S. and will end up hurting your back in the long run.

Start saying yes to things that make you happy and wear shoes that make you giggle.

Listen to music that makes you dance alone in your kitchen and cook food that makes you feel like you’re in a French film from the 1930’s. Seriously, it makes those early mornings saddling up before you’re totally awake way better.

Dear Cowgirl, life can be fun.

Exciting.

Joyful.

Full of passion and the absolute opposite of lackluster.

Dear Cowgirl, stop settling.

I hear the words ring out with certainty.

“We have kids! We could never like, LEAVE.”

“I’d love to go on an adventure, but you know. School. And, rent. And…uh…well.”

“WHAT IF I BROKE DOWN?!”

The last one really was said. It took me back to burying my blue truck to the axel in the bed of a lake by the ghost town of Bodie, and digging myself out with a frying pan over the period of three days (but thats a story for another time).

Before I packed up my truck and left I made the same excuses.

“I’m in school!”

“I’m in therapy!”

“I’M SCARED.”

That was the real reason.

I was scared.

And I have this thing about being scared. If there is something terrifying me, I gotta do it. I gotta make it my favorite thing. I have to conquer it.

So I left before I was ready.

Dear Cowgirl, that is the secret. I swear. You have to do the scary thing BEFORE you’re ready.

Seriously. Stop making excuses. Pack up the kids.

My parents raised my sister and I like gypsies wandering around the globe. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I thank my parents everyday for giving me that. Your kids will love the adventure.

Build a truck camper, buy one, rent an RV, buy a plane ticket, buy two.

Do what you WANT. Pack up the family. Don’t make excuses. Leave.

It’s worth it, I promise.

The power wouldn’t turn on this morning. which meant no coffee.

The truck is dirty and beginning to break down again.

AGAIN.

I spilled blueberry smoothie down my white button down, which is what I get for trying to eat healthy while on the go.

My sister is ill, and i’m terrified every minute about losing my best friend.

I have ten million things going WRONG this morning.

But you know what is going right?

Everything.

I didn’t wake up to someone bombing my home this morning.

I slept in a bed, not under a bridge.

I made myself healthy, safe food that I was able to buy.

I was feeling grumpy as I worried about my vehicle I own.

I was irritated by the stains on my clothing as I grabbed another shirt choice, hanging neatly ironed in my closet.

I stop halfway out the door for the second time that day.

I look at the blessings I’ve been given, and give a silent prayer for the things that have been gifted but cannot be seen.

I am thankful. I am joyful. I am alive.

Everyone is scared.

I swear.

I know you think the hot girl with the 30857037 likes on Instagram has no worries or issues – but she’s still human.

I know you think that the people from your past have it all together, are happy and totally “with it” but girl – everyone is trying, failing and trying again. Everyone is scared, worried about stuff we have no clue about and pretending everything is okay.

Me?

I’ll be honest because I have to be. Because you need to know that we all deal with the same stuff.

I’m terrified of my future. I’m taking a million huge risks right now, I have no clue if they will pan out – and I have a pair of Levi’s in a size I don’t fit in yet that are currently staring at me from my closet. I’m worried I’ve made bad choices, I’m proud of what I’ve done in life, but I want to make a difference in the world in a bigger way that I don’t have a clue how to accomplish.

But you know what is beautiful?

We all deal with the same insecurities, the same worries and the same second thoughts about absolutely everything. We all struggle with family, feelings and fears.

And we all have the same chances. We all have the same opportunities. The same possibilities.

We all have the same incredibly terrifying and execrating chances waiting for us.

Turn those fears into the future, and don’t let even one of those chances go.

Today is the day.

Today is the day that you will wake-up and conquer the demons.

Today is the day that you leave the hurts behind.

Today is the day that you stop letting “them” tell you how to live, and you start doing what you know is right.

It can be the day that changes everything.

Even if “all” you do is laundry, take the kids to school and make sure everyone in your family is fed. You have the ability to change your life, even if its just by picking up a new book, ringing an old friend you’ve lost touch with or challenging yourself to a new interest.

I made a few changes this year, and they have been some of the scariest and most exciting things that I’ve ever set my mind to.

They make me nervous down to my core, that cold-sweat-I might pass out feeling that seems to always pay off in the long run….the kind I know is right.

Dear Cowgirl, please remember that no matter how small the change – your life can become exactly what you dream of. Just don’t take no for an answer.

You’re only a pre-teen, a teenager. A young girl.

Please, please do not let others bring you down.

You are at a point in your life when everything in this world can feel like it’s out to get you, like it’s all crashing down.

You are at a point when it seems like friends will turn on you, and maybe you will get your heart hurt.

I promise that it passes.

I promise that it will get better, I promise that the people that sometimes feel like they hurt you the most – will not even be there in a few years.

I promise that the things you feel your parents are doing just to ” be out to get you” will make sense later on.

I promise that people’s opinions start to matter less and less, and that one day you will realize that YOU matter – and they cannot change who you are.

I promise that being bullied isn’t okay no matter what age, and that by standing up and telling someone is not only brave – but an act of self love that your future self will thank you for.

I promise that showing more of yourself doesn’t equal worth. You are perfect in a turtleneck or a bikini.

Do not feel the need to take it all off to be worth something.

Dear Cowgirl, you are so beautiful and brave. You have so much life to live, you have so many adventures to live – you’ve got this.

Be you, you are growing into such a beautiful young woman – inside and out.

It’s ok to still believe Zane Grey novel endings.

It’s okay to want to make meals for branding crews and not long for the big city.

It’s okay to wear worn moccasins instead of heels and dance till the barn dirt swirls.

It’s okay to look forward to days spent on the back of a flea-bitten grey, rather than speeding down roads in long black sedans.

It’s ok to wear a dusty felt hat rather than a  perfectly curled and styled mane.

Dear Cowgirl, do not feel the need to be the “big-city” girl.

If the desert and mountains, endless blue sky and sagebrush call to you…answer them.

Be true to your wild self, you don’t have to always have to answer the cities call.

This is a reminder that all women have love handles.

We all have a secret pair of jeans in the back of the closet that we keep “just for when” we loose that extra weight.

All women have bad breath in the morning, messy hair and left over mascara on their cheeks when they wake up.

All girls when working with an all male cowboy crew have to find a hill or tree to hide behind to pee. Yep I said it. everyone does it. You don’t have to feel like less of a hand because of it.

All women wonder before they pull out the sleeveless shirts in the springtime for branding. Arm flab happens, loose skin happens.

All women “tuck” their tummy in when they settle horseback.

All women have stretch marks, moles and wrinkles. Scars and quirks and little things that make each one unique.

We have bodies, they change and alter and grow. They are damn beautiful. No airbrushed magazine cover, no beautified celebrity and no “perfect” Instagram model can be the ideal standard of what we, as cowgirls should attain to.

If our bodies exist dear cowgirl – they are beautiful.

Literally.

If your legs do not work and they sit in a wheelchair – they are beautiful.

If they are whiter than snow because they are always covered in jeans – they are beautiful.

If they are tanned, strong and hold you while you run miles and miles – they are beautiful.

No matter what you “are” it is beautiful.

This doesn’t mean that health and wellness are not important – rather a reminder to always look in the mirror and to LOVE every inch of what you see.

You are perfect Dear Cowgirl, you are real.

You are beautiful, in case no one has told you yet today.

Did you ever wake up one morning and realize that you were the girl you always wanted to be?

Maybe right in this moment there are things you would like to change. Maybe your weight, maybe your love life, maybe your education, maybe your family or relationships are not exactly what you would want in a perfect world…

But you’ve realized in that moment that you are everything you ever needed to be.

The woman you are today was shaped like a rock is smoothed by a river. Rushing and pulsing and painful – but beautiful in the end.

Dear Cowgirl, I know you’re trying and maybe you aren’t done growing yet – but who and what you are right now, in this moment – is just right.