a letter to my younger self.
the things i would have needed to hear at 16, 19, 23.
at 16: the intensity of what you feel is not a problem. it is information. it is telling you who you are, what you value, what you can't live without. don't let anyone convince you to turn it down.
at 19: the friends who make you feel small when you succeed are not your friends. i know it's complicated. i know you love them. but love and safety are not the same thing, and you deserve both.
at 23: the relationship you're in is teaching you what you don't want. that's not a failure. that's data. leave when you're ready. and when you're ready, actually leave.
at all of them: you are not too much. you have never been too much. the people who told you otherwise were measuring you against their own capacity, and their capacity was not the standard. it was just their limit.
the writing is going to save you. not because it solves anything, but because it makes the unsayable sayable. it makes the formless have form. it gives the 2am feelings somewhere to go.
keep writing. even when it feels self-indulgent. even when nobody reads it. especially then.
@diverse_.writes