Dear 16-year-old-me,

There are things you have been through that most people will never understand-things they only believe happen in movies or books because the truth is too ugly for the world to look at or acknowledge. I want you to know that I see you, and I know exactly what you are carrying.

I know what it feels like to sit in that driver’s seat, riding down back roads that you never wanted to be on, with her in the passenger seat, instructing you to drive her to her next high. She convinced you that your role in this world was to give pieces of yourself to men, thinking that you were helping her. She dressed it up as survival, as a way to fill the void that loneliness was creating inside of you, and convinced you that if you gave enough, if you were complacent enough, maybe things would settle down and she would finally love you the way she should.

But she never did.

Instead, she traded your innocence like currency. She offered you up for favors so she could feed her cravings, leaving you hollow and wondering, “Is this what love looks like?”. She betrayed you, not just because she had an obligation to you, but as the one person who was supposed to keep you safe, and what’s worse is that the world pretended not to see.

I realize you’re sitting in loneliness, feeling like you’re too much and never enough, simultaneously. Too loud, too eccentric, too awkward. They told you to be smaller, quieter, to blend in with the surrounding chaos by submitting to the same poisons they chose. They tried to drill it into you that this-this nightmare was just life.

But I’m here now, and we are living proof that they were wrong.

I want you to hear me, hear US, with every broken piece of your heart: WHAT THEY DID TO YOU DOES NOT DEFINE YOU. What she asked of you, what they took, none of it belongs to you. You are not the sum of their betrayals. You are not broken or damaged goods. You are NOT the sum of the actions that were forced upon you.

You are a wildfire they couldn’t put out. Every time they tried to smother you, to force you into the box they built, you burned a little brighter. Your constant desire to love passionately and unreservedly has always been a trait that intimidates others, a trait that I have come to understand.

I know how badly you’ve wanted someone to love you back that way. But here’s the truth I’ve learned in all the years between you and me: LOVE DOES NOT COME FROM OTHER PEOPLE. It comes from inside, and it starts from the moment you begin to accept yourself, to validate your worth, to believe that peace is something you deserve. Love, for us, became peace, not chaos. Not the violent, twisted kind you’ve known, but the quiet kind that feels like coming home to yourself.

It won’t all be easy. There are still struggles ahead, but listen to me: you have already seen the darkest this world can offer. And every day beyond that is better! Not perfect, but better.

You’ll escape those violent rooms. You’ll break those cycles that they tried to chain you. You’ll become a mother yourself, and though you won’t be perfect (none of us are), you’ll love your children with the kind of fierce devotion you never received. The day will come when you will fight like hell for them, and for yourself, too.

Eventually, you will go back to school. You’ll earn that degree you dreamed about, that you thought was out of reach. You’ll build a career, not just any job, but a life outside the box they shoved you in. And you’ll learn that sometimes, being alone is far better than being surrounded by people who only want to take from you. There’s peace in the solitude. The peace that we have earned.

And… I forgive them. Not for their sake, but for ours. I forgive the ones who turned away from our light, who couldn’t handle our wildness, our weirdness, our loudness. Their rejection doesn’t define us either.

Success, for us, exists in every single step we take outside of that box. In the moments we choose peace. Every time we speak up when they expect silence.. Every time we love ourselves when they expect us to crumble.

So hold on, sweet girl. Stay loud. Stay weird. Stay exactly who you are. There’s a world waiting for you- a world they never imagined for us. A world where we burned that box. And… It’s beautiful here.

With unbreakable love and pride,
Me

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