I received a post in my private group, from a Hmong sister who was left by the man she devoted herself to for many years. She went on to list all the amazing things about herself–accomplishments, skills, assets that she spent her whole life honing so that she could be the perfect wife and daughter. Both in and outside of the home–personal and professional. And yet, she was here, defeated, exhausted, and at loss on how much more she needed to be, and why she was still not enough to be chosen.

Her words, trembled my heart. I could just feel her whole world like it was mine.

Because for the longest time, even as ambitious and achieving as I always was, all I wanted was to become a good Hmong wife, and a good Hmong daughter.

I know every relationship and situation is different. I know different things work for different people. I know both sides of a relationship are not perfect. But I also know how big of a difference Nakita at 15 was, from Nakita at 19, and even Nakita at 21.

So I write this, hoping it would reach a younger me out there somewhere too.

To the older men dating a teen, more than shaming, this would be my deepest plea:

To know the power of the influence you have on her and how that could change her life forever.

And that is also my biggest fear—that that is precisely what you know and you know it well.

You are not her savior and the most heroic thing you can do is to stand aside and let her grow at her own pace at her fullest capacity without the influence of you.

As our newsfeed, hearts, and minds have been filled with happiness from Sunisa’s win, she ignites a fire of hope and inspiration in us all. But at the same time, I know it can cause many of us to feel a sense of pressure, rush or confusion on what role we can play in our people’s greatness, or what next big thing we can achieve too. Some of us resent our dreams that were cut before they could even blossom. And some, heartbroken that it is too late for us to start.

But I hope to remind you today, that you don’t need to be the next Sunisa.

You don’t even need a title, a medal, or a role.

Because even if you might not be the first to do something, you just need to be the first you, and the greatest you. Starting now.

It took a recent message from my past, to really click to me just how far I’ve grown.

For the longest time, perhaps my whole life, (and largely because of society’s conditioning) I have always been longing for, waiting for, and racing to finally “get there,” wherever “there” even meant. I’m not so sure I ever stopped to really dissect that question and ask myself where on earth I was trying to “get” to and why I was in such a rush or felt so far away.

I feel like I kept making up answers along the way. That “there” was “happiness,” and “there” would be when I finally enjoyed life. At first, I thought it would be when I got accepted into college. But when I got there, I still wasn’t “there.” So then, I told myself, I’d finally be happy when I graduated college--it still wasn’t it. I thought it was a job, and that for sure wasn’t it. I truly believed it was a boyfriend, and that couldn’t be more off.

So now I was left with nothing. I had nowhere else to run to. No more rocks to turn over. I was just still. And that’s probably the exact place I finally found it.

I love celebrating holidays and achievements, and after being a girlfriend for 5 years of my adult life, I think I started getting really caught up on anniversaries. Almost as if somewhere along the way, I started believing that having an anniversary to celebrate, meant it was another year I was chosen, another year I was still someone’s person, another year I didn’t have to be alone.

But I realize we don’t often celebrate being on our own, especially after being in relationships. We don’t celebrate it as a new chapter like we do marriage, even though it really is. If anything, I realize it is now the most important chapter I could’ve had, but almost missed.

I am so blessed to have had a full year to myself. This week marks that year. The first year I spent as a single woman since 17, and as a whole person for the first time in my life.

I’ve done a lot of reflection and learning on relationships in the past year. Probably because I wasn’t so sure why I had been seeking one anymore and what it meant for me. I’ve come to realize that even as deeply broken as I’ve been, that I’ve never properly loved or been loved. And all that I knew of “love” was just based on movies, what I had seen growing up, or on social media. And that much of our experiences isn’t anyone’s fault, because we are human, so young in retrospect to the universe. It is impossible to expect us to know everything from the start. Yet, at times I can’t believe I was ever in a relationship. I can’t believe how much I didn’t know, because I truly thought I knew love best. But I realize, I didn’t know it at all and I am starting from scratch and redefining it.