Letters people shared.

I saw the wedding photos. I will not pretend I did not look. She has my hair. She has the same earrings I used to wear. I am not mad. I am amused, in a tired way. Whatever you were looking for, you are looking for it in the same aisle. I hope she does not have to live my …

Whoever you become, you are already enough. I will tell you this until you believe it.

Mom died on a Tuesday. The service is Saturday. I'm not asking. I am telling you. You can come and we don't have to speak. Just be in the room.

You did not die. That was the year's only requirement. You did the minimum. The minimum was enormous. Everyone telling you what they did in their bad year did not have your bad year. Their bad years had less weather. Yours had weather. You did not die. Do not let anyone shrink what you did.

I am forty-three. I have made the math. I am writing to you in the version of my life where you were possible. I would have been a good mother. I would have. I am telling myself that on quiet Saturdays. The grief is real. The decision is also real. Both can be true.

Stop apologizing for taking up space. You belong here. They were wrong.

You will not marry him. You will not move to Phoenix. The thing you think is the end of the world is not even the end of the year. Eat something. Call your aunt.