"Dear Self: Don’t Kill the Child Within"
I’ve come to tell you—you’ve grown up now. I know that. But please, don’t kill the child within you, okay? It’s alright to grow, to mature. But once you silence the child within, you start performing maturity rather than living authentically. You’ll get stuck in pretending to be calm, composed, and "adult," instead of being your true, messy, beautiful self. Yes, learn to adjust—but not always. Not now. Not today. Years from now, you'll feel the pressure to be composed all the time. It’ll become a habit, just like gambling becomes a habit—addictive, draining, false. I know this because I started living with relatives from the age of 3 to 5. And like many, I went through things a child never should. Abuse. Violence. The kind that burns you physically and emotionally—walls slammed against me, needles pricked into my hands, burns... all because I dared to write a letter. And yet—I survived. I came out of it. I once couldn’t speak. Now, I speak loudly. And even when I'm si...