To the younger self
A fifth specimen from the letter shop. No buyer, no sender.
You keep waiting for the day it gets quiet. It doesn't. You learn to turn the volume down, and then one day you catch yourself grateful for the noise, because it means you're still standing in the middle of it.
You were right about people. The ones who leave, the ones who stay. You were right to give your secrets to the ones who didn't flinch, and right about the ones who did. Trust that instinct. It doesn't get smarter. It gets braver.
Nobody tells you you'll feel like a fraud for years. You'll do the thing, then a voice says anyone could've done that, and you believe it. That voice isn't yours. It's everyone who was ever too scared to try. Tell it to sit down.
Forgive yourself for what you did to be loved. You were a child holding a hot coal, thinking if you held it long enough, someone would notice how strong you were. They notice. That's the part that hurts.
The day you stop apologizing for taking up space is the day your real life starts. You're closer than you think.
I'm proud of you. I know you don't hear that. Say it back to yourself sometime. It counts more when it's you.
Yours, from the other side.
The Unsent Letter · [email protected] · send one sentence you never sent; the first lines come back free.