letters to younger me
💌
I’ve been thinking a lot about the versions of me that never made it here.
Not the dead names or the old pronouns things,
those we can all easily live through.
I’m talking about the girls I should’ve been, or could've.
The ones I never got to inhabit.
The ones I ghosted before I even knew they existed.
Transition makes you meet them all at once.
Like walking into a room full of echoes
and realizing every one of them sounds like you,
just softer.
So here are some letters.
To the people I used to be.
The people I wasn’t allowed to be.
The people I’m still trying to resurrect.
dear me, 6yrs old
You are the kid who cried when they called you a boy.
You weren’t dramatic.
You weren’t “sensitive.”
You weren’t broken.
You weren’t wrong.
You just knew something long before anyone let you say it.
I wish someone had asked you
why your face fell every time an adult forced masculinity on you
like a badly sized uniform.
You weren’t confused.
You were, actually, correct.
I’m so sorry nobody listened.
dear me, 12yrs old
the one who thought girlhood wasn’t for you
You didn’t fail at being a boy.
You were just grieving the life you thought was off-limits.
I remember how you stared at girls your age
with this weird mix of longing and confusion
and couldn’t tell if you wanted to be them
or be near them
or both.
Spoiler:
it was “be them.”
(and somehow they knew before I did)
And the world should’ve let you sooner.
You deserved hair clips
and softness
and pretty notebooks
and the safety of being understood.
I’m sorry you didn’t get any of it.
But I’m giving them to us now. For a better side.
dear me, 14yrs old
you learned to disappear
You masked so hard you almost erased your entire personality.
You convinced yourself that being quiet meant being good,
that being invisible meant being safe.
You locked away every spark of femininity you had
because you thought it made you “strange.”
You weren’t strange.
You were blooming.
Just indoors.
In the dark.
I’m sorry you had to wilt to survive.
But I swear I’m opening the blinds now.
dear me, 16yrs old
you tried to be a man and nearly choked
God, I wish I could hug you.
You tried so hard.
Too hard.
You built an entire identity on top of yourself
like scaffolding around a building that never wanted to be built.
You thought if you performed androgyny perfectly,
it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
But the better you got at pretending,
the more you disappeared.
You weren’t failing.
You were suffocating.
I’m sorry nobody noticed.
I notice now.
dear me, 19yrs old
you knew but didn’t know she knew
You hovered on the edge of girlhood
like someone waiting at a locked door
hoping it would open itself.
You googled the same questions every night.
You read other people’s transition timelines
like they were maps out of a maze
you already understood too well.
You made playlists that sounded like crying in a bathroom.
You whispered names that felt like secrets.
You stared at mirrors like they owed you answers.
You weren’t confused.
You were terrified.
And rightfully so.
But you were right.
About everything.
I’m sorry nobody gave you permission.
I’m learning to give it to us now.
dear every version of me
the girl I didn’t know I was allowed to be
You made it.
Not cleanly.
Not quietly.
Not in one piece.
But you made it.
I’m learning how to build a life
where you’d all feel safe.
Where you’d all feel wanted.
Where you’d all feel possible.
I can’t give you back the years we lost.
I can’t rewrite our childhood.
I can’t undo the silence, or the masking,
or the boyhood we never asked for.
But I can do this:
I can be her now.
For all of us.
I can grow into the girl
you were all reaching for in the dark.
And that has to be enough.
For now.
we’ll keep going.
together. xoxo
much love - claire, 18/Nov/2025