Letters to the Version of Me That Gave Up

Letter One: The Night You Stopped

Dear Me,

You didn’t even say goodbye.

You just closed the notebook and turned off the lamp. Said, “I’ll try again tomorrow,”

But tomorrow came and you didn’t.

It wasn’t a dramatic unraveling — no broken pens or burned pages. Just silence. The kind that settles in corners and grows roots. You stopped writing. Stopped dreaming. Stopped hoping that anything you did might matter.

I don’t blame you.

You were tired.

Of rejection. Of pretending. Of chasing inspiration only to find it curled into a ball in someone else’s hands.

You were tired of being almost good enough.

So you folded your voice like a letter with no stamp, and placed it in a drawer no one ever opened.

But here’s what I need you to know — you didn’t fail. You paused.

There’s a difference.

Letter Two: The Hollow Days

Dear Me,

Remember how empty everything felt without the words?

You didn’t talk about it, but I know.

There were days you scrolled through social media, watching strangers publish poems that sounded like the ones you buried.

You congratulated them with a smile that didn’t reach your eyes.

You drank your tea cold.

You didn’t cry.

You didn’t do anything.

That version of you — the one that floated, who worked the job, answered emails, laughed at lunch — that wasn’t the whole of you.

That was the shadow.

And shadows, even the darkest ones, exist because there is light somewhere.

You just couldn’t see it.

Yet.

Letter Three: The Quiet Resurrection

Dear Me,

You wrote again.

A line at first. Then two.

A half-thought on the back of a receipt.

A story idea scribbled in the corner of a grocery list.

Tiny rebellions.

Tiny seeds.

It wasn’t perfect. You cringed when you reread it. You told yourself you were rusty. But you kept going.

I want to applaud that version of you — the trembling, vulnerable you — because starting again is a kind of bravery no one talks about.

The world loves a debut. A breakthrough. A bestseller.

But it takes a different kind of strength to write when no one’s waiting.

And you did that.

Letter Four: The Words You Thought Were Lost

Dear Me,

The voice you thought had left you?

It was never gone. It was just… quiet. Waiting for you to come back and listen.

You started hearing it again in the stillness — in the rhythm of your footsteps, the echo of strangers’ conversations, the sound of your own breath while staring at the ceiling.

You started noticing how light hit cracked pavement, how a girl on the train clutched her necklace like a prayer, how your mother’s voice wavered when she said she missed you.

You started collecting those things again. The way you always used to.

And just like that, the voice returned.

Not louder — but clearer.

Letter Five: The Version of Me Who Forgot She Was a Fire

Dear Me,

You used to think you were soft — made of fragility and fear. But let me remind you:

You are burning.

You are wildfire in still skin. You are the echo of every woman who wrote through heartbreak, through rage, through silence. You are the descendant of poets who whispered verses into the cracks of history.

You forgot, for a while.

Life made you forget.

Bills. Loss. Loneliness. The endless need to be useful.

You forgot that your words don’t have to be perfect to be powerful.

You forgot that healing isn’t linear.

You forgot that art doesn’t owe anyone polish — only honesty.

But you’re remembering now.

You are remembering you.

Letter Six: If You Ever Think of Stopping Again

Dear Me,

You will be tempted.

There will be days where every sentence feels like an insult to the page.

Where doubt creeps in with the weight of a hundred unread drafts.

Where someone’s success will taste like your failure.

When that happens, pause. Breathe.

And then write anyway.

Write badly. Write awkwardly. Write a single word, if that’s all you can do.

Because silence might feel safe — but it’s a cage.

And you weren’t made to live in cages.

You were made to speak. To spill. To howl.

You were made for ink.

Letter Seven: To the Girl Who Gave Up, and Got Back Up

Dear Me,

This isn’t a victory letter.

Because the truth is, you will fall again. You’ll give up again, in small ways.

But now you know how to come back.

Now, when you forget who you are, you have proof that resurrection is possible. That even when your hands shake, your voice can hold.

You are not just a writer.

You are a survivor.

Of your own silence.

That is no small thing.

And I love you.

Even in the moments when you can’t.

Especially then.

With ink, always,

Me