Almost Home

...a letter to the self beneath the survival - quiet, true, and still becoming

Dear Me,

This isn’t a love letter. It’s a reckoning.

Come home - not to the performance, not to the mask you wore to survive. I’m talking about the raw, unfiltered version of you. The one who existed before you learned to shrink, to smile through the ache, to stay likable while breaking. She’s not lost. She’s just been waiting for permission to take up space again.

You don’t owe anyone the version of you that made them comfortable.

The grief, the confusion, the trauma you carried like second skin? That wasn’t weakness, that was survival. But survival isn’t the finish line. It’s just the middle. And in the middle, you found something real: not a happy ending, not a silver lining - just a quiet, grounded knowing. That knowing is your power now.

The flowers at your front door? They’re not romantic. They’re evidence. Left by the versions of you who endured what they shouldn’t have had to. The girl who stayed silent. The woman who bent until she broke. The self you tried to bury under expectations. They planted seeds you’re only just learning how to bloom from.

You’ve written letters before. Some were desperate. Some were full of hope. None of them were lies. They were blueprints. You were building a way back to yourself the whole time.

And when the doubt crawls back in because it will, don’t waste energy fighting it. Just remember: your light isn’t performative. It’s not loud. It doesn’t need to be. It’s felt. It shifts rooms. It’s the reason people can’t quite name why they trust you, or why they envy your silence.

This is not the time to dim.

This is not the time to abandon yourself to survive others.

You’re not lost. You’re arriving.

Love,
You.