My sweet girl, who is not so little anymore,

This week there were two women in our community murdered, by men they were in a relationship with. Those women were someone’s daughter, just as you are mine. My heart breaks for them, and worries for you, for the challenges you might have to face in your life.

I know you are at a time in your life, when relationships are exciting, boyfriends are common and you have a desire to connect with someone, to feel loved, to feel beautiful and to feel cherished. Please wait.

There are lots of good reasons to wait to have a boyfriend, to wait for intimacy. As you enter a relationship it’s natural to want that bond to go deeper. It may lead to emotional intimacy, or physical intimacy. It’s no secret, having a boyfriend often leads girls to sex or to feel pressured to have sex.

I don’t need to tell you again the reasons that sex is a bad idea for young girls like you, or any women who is not in a committed relationship–STDs, unwanted pregnancy, emotional devastation and heartache. The list could go on. I’ve told you all those things before, they are all good reasons to wait to have sex, good reasons to wait to have an intimate and committed relationship.

But they are not the only reason to wait to have a boyfriend. Relationships are hard. Intimate relationships become intense. They are work. You are young. You should be living carefree, learning each day and having fun. A relationship at this time in your life will steal some of that from you, even though it probably won’t feel that way at the time.

It’s really, really easy to lose yourself in a relationship. As a mother and wife. I have at times lost myself in my relationship with your father. Your father is a good man. He’s committed to me and to our family. He works hard to care for me and for our children. He wants good for me. Still, I have lost myself.

At times, I have lost sight of my needs. I have lost sight of who I am and who I want to become. All this happened despite me already having learned lots of life lessons. Despite me growing into myself in my teen years and learning more about myself in my 20’s. Despite me having a good man who is also trying his best and is committed to me.

Relationships, no matter how good your partner is, are too easy to lose yourself in. It is too easy to forget who you are deep down. It’s too easy to hide the parts of you that you are afraid someone won’t like. It’s too easy to put all your focus on someone else, and on making him happy, when you have yet to discover what truly makes you happy.

Please don’t take the chance on a relationship when you are so young and when there are so many other options, when there is so much you will give up if you do.

Please, don’t lose yourself before you have even found yourself and grown into your amazing potential.

Please wait on those relationships. There will be time for you to be deeply committed, deeply in love, deeply intimate and deeply cherished by another human being. There will be time for you to give yourself to another person, but please don’t do it now.

You are young and full of potential. Take the amazing people you are surrounded by, and instead of committing yourself to one, enjoy the beauty of them all. Find friends, the best and purest friends you may ever have, both male and female. Find friends who love you for who you are, and if the friends you find aren’t quite your tribe, don’t be scared to start over, and to keep searching for your truest friends. But don’t commit yourself to just one, not quite yet. There will be time enough for that–even though it sometimes doesn’t feel that way, even though it may feel urgent.

Use this time in your life, that you will never have back, not to commit yourself to one person, but to seek out those who are like you, to learn about yourself and who you want to be, to find the person that is the grandest version of yourself. Use this time to have fun, to relish in the freedom that you will never have again once you have fully committed yourself to one person. Use this time to lift yourself and lift others in the process instead of becoming obsessively committed to one person (yes, I know this is how it goes, I remember being there myself).

When you have those first feelings of interest, when that boy first gives you butterflies in your stomach, when he says something sweet–telling you how wonderful or how beautiful you are, choose to be his friend. Choose to learn about each other and enjoy each other and enjoy being free from the burdens of responsibility that a committed relationship brings. Choose to be a friend to that boy who interests and excites you, and it will be better. You will be giving you both time to learn about yourself and learn about each other, without the intense pressure and stress of a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.

Those girls who were murdered last week–they didn’t enter a relationship anticipating it would end their life. They didn’t think those boys who gave them butterflies and excited themselves would abuse and hurt them–eventually kill them. Like you have sometimes felt, they thought they found love, they thought they found someone who cared for them. They didn’t.

They lost themselves in selfish, unfeeling and unhealthy men and it ended their lives. They lost themselves, so that even when they knew they should leave, they couldn’t. They lost themselves and thought they were being loving and unselfish when they stayed with the toxic, unhealthy men who beat them and then begged them for forgiveness and begged them to stay. They stayed even though, deep down, they probably wanted to leave. They lost themselves like so many women do, and sadly lost their lives.

This may never be your story–I pray it isn’t.

You may never lose yourself with a man who cannot control himself, but you may lose yourself with a boy who asks you to change and so you do. You may lose yourself with a boy who wants to be more physically intimate than you, and so you are. You may lose yourself with a boy who asks you to defy the two people who care about you most and want to keep you safe. For him you may leave those who care for you in favor of the one who excites you, may even claim to love you. You may lose yourself to the boy who thinks you should look different, and so you try to with all that is in your power, even though you are beautiful just the way you are. You may lose yourself to a boy who laughs at your childhood loves and so you give them up when you don’t need to. You may lose yourself to a boy who tells you, you aren’t enough and so you begin to believe it too. You may lose yourself to a boy who asks you to give up other friendships and relationships, and so you lose them.

Please wait. Wait until you can be with a man, who loves you for who you are, and you are strong enough, brave enough and knowledgeable enough to know who that man is. Wait to commit yourself to someone until you know who you are and what you want in life and you find a man who loves you enough to want those things for you as well, much more than he would ever want to change you.

For now, while you are young, commit to finding your best self. Commit to finding and pursuing your passions. Commit to interacting with and enjoying as many friendships as you can. Commit to learning about the kind of person you truly want to become. Commit to having fun and building memories with lots of friends. Commit to letting your youth be what it should be, a time to explore and learn. Please wait to commit yourself to just one person.

These days will never come again. You will grow, you will find love and get married and have children, and your life will never again be entirely your own. Now, while it is all your own, enjoy it, appreciate it, cherish it and use it to become the strong, courageous, creative, knowledgeable and wonderful women that you will one day be.

One day you will find love. You will find a person that you can commit to learning and growing and struggling with for the rest of your life. When you do, it will be both wonderful and stretching, but for now–Please wait.