Note to self

58/365

Hi G.B.E’s love,

Today’s letter reminds me of me. At a point I started being the person I wanted people to be to me when I was young. I do it for me and I do it for others and it keeps a bright smile on my face. What if you don’t have to wait for that one person to come. What if you can be that person for your self? Oreva tells us why and how in this letter.

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There is a line that keeps circling back to me lately: be the person you needed when you were younger.

For many of us, childhood, teenage years, or early adulthood left quiet gaps. Maybe it was encouragement that never came, a steady hand during chaos, someone who believed in your strange dreams without laughing, or simply a safe place to fall apart without judgment. We carried those absences quietly. They shaped us, sometimes into armor, sometimes into lingering questions about our own worth.

But there is a beautiful, redemptive truth we grow into: we do not have to remain defined by what was missing. We can become it.

There comes a quiet point in growth when you realize you are slowly becoming the person you once searched for. The reassurance you longed to hear, the gentleness you needed, the steady presence you wished existed, you begin offering it yourself. Not perfectly, not all at once, but intentionally. Healing, it turns out, is not only about looking back. It is also about growing forward into the care you deserved.

Many of us move through life carrying invisible versions of ourselves, younger selves who needed protection, understanding, encouragement, or simply someone who stayed. For a long time, we search for that person in others. Eventually, something shifts. We begin to speak to ourselves with more patience. We set boundaries we once could not. We allow rest where we once demanded endurance.

Becoming someone you needed when you were younger is a quiet kind of transformation. It is choosing compassion over self criticism, presence over avoidance, and growth over shame. It does not erase what was missing, but it creates, in the present, the safety and care that once felt out of reach.

Sometimes, the most profound healing is realizing you are now someone your younger self could have felt safe with.

Becoming someone you needed when you were younger is not about rewriting the past. It is about meeting yourself in the present with the kindness that once felt absent and letting that kindness shape who you are becoming.

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Let your change start with you. Be that person for yourself. Be the one to compliment you. Be the one to encourage you. Be the one to keep you going. Begin with you.

With love.🫶🏾