The Truth I'm Here to Tell You

As part of a recent creative writing workshop, I put together a couple of handouts for participants—one was a collection of 30 prompts designed to open up memory, reflection, and story.

This was a version of one of them:

Prompt: A Letter to Your Younger Self

Think back to a time when you felt uncertain or overwhelmed.

What would you say now, if you could meet that version of you?

You don’t have to rewrite the past—
just offer something honest.
Something steady.

This one intrigued me, and here’s what I came up with.

The Truth I’m Here to Tell You

Dear younger me,

You didn’t need to twist yourself into something someone else could accept.

You didn’t have to measure every word,
or hold back the hard parts
just to keep the peace.

I know you thought being good meant being agreeable.
That love meant softening your edges.
That safety came from silence.

It didn’t.

You were already enough—as-is.
Even then.

I look back and see someone who tried hard to keep the peace—
even when it meant betraying his own knowing.

Someone who protected people
who wouldn’t have done the same.

Someone who carried blame
that was never his to begin with.

And still—you held on to something true.

You kept noticing.
You kept caring.

Even in the fog,
you watched,
you wrote,
you tried to understand.

That mattered.

Eventually, you stopped spinning stories
to make things easier for other people.

You learned to stand tall—
to look around and notice
who might be in the splash zone of your honesty.

You didn’t speak your truth to wound.
You spoke it because you finally trusted yourself
enough to stop hiding.

And yes, some people found that uncomfortable.
But you didn’t flinch.

You let the discomfort be theirs.
And you let yourself breathe.

I don’t think I could’ve rushed that for you.
You had to learn it by doing—
the long way, the hard way,
the only way it was ever going to stick.

But I never stopped believing you’d get here.

Now, when you tell the truth,
you do it with care.

You hold space—
for the story,
and for the people inside it.

You’re fair.
You’re honest.
You’re kind.

And you’ve learned—
sometimes, the willingness to speak
is the gift.

You didn’t need to be anything more
than what you were.

You didn’t need to keep proving your worth.
You didn’t need to bend so far
just to be held.

Even when no one said it—
even when you couldn’t name it—

You were lovable.

Even in the silence.
Even in the mess.
Even when you thought no one was watching.

And you always will be.

If no one ever told you that before—
I’m telling you now.

That’s the truth I came here to tell you.

—Me