21 Letters – #13 Self II – Rebuilding
funny,
how you can build a whole life
with someone you love
and still feel like you’ve left pieces of yourself
scattered behind
like breadcrumbs
in someone else’s story.
i didn’t mean for anything to break.
i didn’t mean to pack a suitcase
full of questions
and drive across the map
until I forgot the sound of everything
except my own breath.
but it had to happen.
somewhere between the riverbeds of routine
and the soft, sacred way he used to say my name,
i realized i was pretending.
not all of me,
but just enough to make it unsustainable.
he,
my favorite human in so many ways,
deserved more.
deserved someone who could return
the kind of love he gave so easily,
like sunlight through open windows.
and i…
i was moonlight.
cool, distant, still figuring out
why i always felt like i was performing
a version of love
that didn’t quite fit
no matter how gentle his hands were.
but this is not about endings, really.
this is about beginnings,
disguised as chaos.
i remember driving west
until the mountains looked like questions
and the sky no longer smelled like childhood.
i dropped everything...
not because i was brave,
but because standing still
had started to feel like drowning.
people don’t tell you
that grief can look like relief.
or that sometimes
you don’t start becoming yourself
until you’ve torn the map
and walked into the wilderness
with only your shadow for company.
and yet
even in the quiet,
even in the ache of starting over,
there was always a thread of light
guiding me like the north star.
Glenn.
his laugh is the reason i kept going.
his little hand reaching for mine is
the truest compass i’ve ever known.
i was never really alone.
i’ve learned this, too:
you cannot find your voice
in the echo chamber of familiarity.
you must leave.
not forever,
but far enough that you stop hearing
your mother’s fears,
your father’s expectations,
your hometown’s whispered shoulds.
you must become the stream
that breaks away from the river,
carving your own path
through rock and root
and all the things you once thought
would hold you together.
the mountains will test you.
the solitude will strip you bare.
but on the other side,
you will find
your own reflection
smiling back
with eyes softer than shame
and a spine stronger than survival.
this life i’m building,
it isn’t perfect.
but it feels like mine.
and that’s more than i ever thought i’d get.
i am not who i was
but i am also not broken.
i am water –
changing shape,
but never substance.
and somehow,
through all of it,
i am still becoming.