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Dear you of the past,

I wasn’t sure how to address you because the two of us have a complicated relationship, and to be honest, we kind of missed love. 

You, the one from the past, did not know how to love yourself. Please don’t worry. 

Even I, the present one, don’t really know how to love you.

But I want to make peace in this way, through the lines below.

Let’s build a bridge of gentle words, of forgiveness, and meet in love, somewhere in the middle. 

I watch the candles dance and wait to see you rise from the streaks of smoke, like a ghost of every past Christmas. And look how you carry me so far back in time.

I remember you shy, distrustful, deeply hurt by the mischief of the children in the class.

I see you gradually giving up being who you are, to be like those around you. 

So much sensitivity, so little confidence in your own strength, so lacking in your spine.

I see you letting yourself be carried away by the desires and dreams of others, forgetting more and more who you are and what you want. 

So dreamy, eager to be saved by someone else, easy to convince.

I see you constantly looking for that love in fairy tales, and I feel the pain in this wounded search you were on. 

I see you dreaming with open eyes, dreams far too big for how small you feel. 

I see you deceived and scared. 

So much pain trying to understand yourself, trying to integrate, trying to compare yourself.

I see you darken. You lose your radiance; you let yourself be overwhelmed by your own thoughts. 

So innocent, so emotional, and selfish sometimes.

I see you hurt by those you cherished. I see you crying over anything, and I also I see you when you don’t care anymore and you forget about those around you. 

I remember you when you were thinner, when you were fuller. When you were full of you, when you were more insecure about your presence.

I see you trying to lose weight. I see you eating even though you don’t know if you’re hungry or where that hunger is coming from. 

I see you dominating the rooms, and then I see you hidden in a corner, not wanting to bother anyone.

So fragile, so contrasting, so lost.

I see you tearing yourself apart thinking you made the wrong decisions; I see you trying things that don’t suit you; I see you wandering in places you don’t belong to. 

So stubborn, so eager to find meaning in anything, so enthusiastic.

I see you how you’re not giving up even though it may have been the easier way. I see you reading, experimenting, searching for the truth. I see you dancing with boundless joy.

So childish, so empathetic, so generous.

Although you have become an adult, I still see you giggling.

I see you how you would like to, if you could, take the pain away from everyone on this Earth. I see how you give.

So creative, so romantic, so vulnerable.

I see what you can create when you let yourself be guided by inspiration; I see you sometimes write as if you come from another century; I see you gradually expose yourself without masks. 

I remember you in the moments when you looked at the whole world with bright and loving eyes, with the confidence that every human has good intentions, when you appreciated the presence of beautiful women and stopped comparing yourself with them.

There, I see you shining brightest. Here is where I want to meet you, and to thank you. 

No matter who you were, no matter what decisions you made (good or bad), you led me to the current version of myself.

Even though I still feel imperfect and ignorant, I am still more aware, a little more committed, more attentive to who I want to become, and I am looking to learn how to evolve—step by step. 

Thank you for breaking patterns, for stepping out of your comfort zone, for continuing to write as much as you could at the time, for sometimes giving up control, for moving forward. 

Thank you for all that you have built, for all that you have torn down, for all that you have given up, for all those dreams that you have dreamed of, so that I, the present one, can become who I am meant to be.

With self-love,

S. 

~