Lessons on being yourself.

You started paying attention early. You noticed how people reacted. You learned to measure your safety in approval, to edit yourself before anyone else could.

I know you weren’t pretending. You were protecting. You thought if you could manage how people saw you , you’d never have to feel the discomfort of being misunderstood again. But you can’t spend your whole life translating yourself for other people, it’s too heavy.

Some people will misunderstand you and it won’t mean you did something wrong. It’ll mean you stopped making yourself smaller to fit their comfort. You don’t have to be perfectly understood to be “good,” you just have to stay honest enough to recognize yourself when you look back.

The people who are meant to know you won’t need a perfect version to love. They’ll meet you where words run out and they will still see you.

- Sabrina