Dear younger me — you spend so much energy rehearsing the worst version of this conversation. It never goes the way you rehearse it. Sometimes it goes worse. But more often, so much more often than you let yourself believe, it goes better, and you're left standing there not knowing what to do with all that unused fear.

I'm not going to pretend every door opened. Some people you loved could not, or would not, come with you. That part is real and it is allowed to hurt for a long time. But I want you to know what's on the other side of the door that did open: a version of your life with room in it. Room to stop editing yourself mid-sentence. Room to introduce someone by their real name to your face without flinching. Room to be tired for ordinary reasons instead of the exhausting, specific tiredness of hiding.

You are not too much. You were never too much. You were exactly enough for a life that hadn't arrived yet.