Everything I Never Said to My Younger Self

Hey, you.

I see you—sitting cross-legged on your bedroom floor, scribbling in that blue notebook, wondering if the ache in your chest is normal or if something’s wrong with you.

You won’t believe me now, but you're doing just fine.

There are so many things I wish I had told you back then. So many moments I wish I could pause, step in, and whisper: “It’s okay. You’re okay.” But since I can’t go back, let me say it now. For you. For me. For anyone who needs to hear it.

First, let’s start with this: you are not too sensitive.

You feel everything like it’s happening in color while the rest of the world lives in black and white. I know you try to hide it—to laugh when you're supposed to, to nod when you want to scream. You worry that your softness makes you weak. That you need to toughen up to fit in.

You don’t.

That softness is a gift. One day, it will help someone feel seen when they’re breaking. One day, it will help you write words that matter.

You don’t have to earn love.

I know you think you do. I remember the way you bent yourself into shapes to make other people stay. The way you said "yes" when you wanted to say "no." The way you thought being agreeable made you lovable.

But listen carefully—love that requires you to shrink isn’t love. It’s performance. It’s fear. And you deserve better than that.

You deserve the kind of love that sees all of you, even the messy parts, and stays anyway.

I wish I could tell you not to be so afraid of failure.

You hold your breath through every test, every performance, every conversation. You live like the world might fall apart if you mess up even once.

But failure isn’t the monster you think it is. It’s not a dead end. It’s a redirection. Sometimes it even turns out to be the best thing that could have happened.

You won’t believe it at first, but you’ll learn more from what doesn’t go your way than from what does.

And hey—that loneliness you feel? It’s real, but it’s not forever.

There will be years when you feel like no one understands you. When you’ll sit at lunch tables and feel invisible. When you’ll lie awake wondering why friendships feel so hard to keep.

But you won’t always feel this way.

You’ll find your people—the ones who laugh at the same weird things, who ask how you really are, who feel like home. Some of them you haven’t even met yet. Hold on. They’re coming.

You’ll also lose people. That part hurts.

Some of the people you love now will walk away. Or drift. Or hurt you in ways you never expected. You'll try to hold on, thinking it’s your job to fix it, to make things okay again.

But it’s not your job to keep what was never meant to stay.

Let go, gently. Cry if you need to. And then keep moving forward. Life has more pages than you realize, and this chapter isn’t the end.

I wish I could stop you from judging yourself so harshly.

You pick yourself apart in front of mirrors, wondering if you’re pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough. You compare your behind-the-scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel. You think being worthy means being perfect.

But perfection is a myth. And the people you admire most? They’re figuring it out too.

So be kind to yourself. Speak to yourself the way you speak to your friends. You don’t have to earn your worth. You already have it. Just by being here.

One day, you’ll do things you once thought impossible.

You’ll speak up when your voice shakes. You’ll walk away from things that no longer serve you. You’ll forgive people who never said sorry, and you’ll finally begin to forgive yourself too.

You’ll learn that being strong doesn’t mean being unaffected. It means showing up anyway. Feeling everything and still moving forward.

I want to end with this:

I’m proud of you.

Not because you were perfect. Not because you always knew what to do. But because you survived. Because you kept going. Because you never stopped hoping for something more, even when everything felt like too much.

And I’m still learning, too. Still growing. Still becoming.

But every step I take now is because of the path you walked first.

So thank you—for being brave. For dreaming. For holding on.

I love you. I see you. I believe in you.

Always.

—Your future self