What I needed
you to know.

The opening letter

To the woman who recognizes herself here.

Dear you,

I wanted to write a letter to every person who left a lasting hurt in my life. I wanted to tell them what it felt like to be the one still here afterward, trying to make sense of what happened.

These letters are for the men who hurt me, too. I want to tell them what their actions cost me, what stayed with me afterward, and what I need them to understand as I say goodbye.

Some of these letters will be my send-off. A place to say what I need to say, ask for the peace I want, and decide where my part in their story ends.

But before I write to any of them individually, I want to write to you.

I’m not Taylor Swift. I don’t know how to turn everything I’ve felt into a song that says it exactly right. I’m a girl with a bunch of computers, a huge heart, and a lot of empathy for other people.

I’m tired of hoping that the understanding I give will find its way back to me. Tired of expecting more, explaining more, and being left with so much I still need to say.

I know how to build things. So I’m starting there: a place for the words I’m still figuring out, and for anyone who sees a little of herself in them.

Maybe you know what it is to be asked for an apology for something you didn’t do. To explain yourself again, hoping that this time the explanation will be enough. To miss someone and still want peace from them.

Maybe you’re grieving the future you thought you were finally going to have. The chance you believed you had to love each other well. The friendship that existed long before the heartbreak.

That is part of what I want to put into words here.

I want peace.
And I still have things to say.

I’m beginning this project because I want somewhere to put those words. Somewhere I can write about the hurt, the hope, the people who went silent, and what I understand differently now.

I also want these letters to reach a woman who has struggled to explain her own experience. If a sentence here helps you name something, keep it. If your story is different, there is room for that, too.

I’m not writing from the other side of a perfectly finished recovery. I’m starting with what I can say today. Some letters will hold anger. Some will hold love. Some will ask for nothing more than to be left alone.

There will be things I choose to keep private. Telling my story does not have to mean giving every part of myself away.

I hope this becomes a place where we can recognize something in each other’s words, and learn something we can take into the rest of our lives.

For now, this is where I begin.

With words I’m ready to put down,
The woman writing these letters