Dear You,

There is a particular honesty in writing to yourself. Not the polished version that knows exactly what to say, but the one willing to sit with contradiction: to acknowledge the ways people can hurt us while recognizing the ways we have hurt others, to notice what has been given freely and what has been withheld, to look closely enough to admit that tenderness is something owed inward as much as it is offered outward. Dear You is a letter to the person who is so often left out of their own consideration. Self examination is not an exercise in punishment, and that care does not have to be earned by becoming flawless. There is room for accountability, compassion in the same sentence. Room to acknowledge what needs changing without abandoning the person who has to change it. The words across the face become less a message to be deciphered than a veil between what is known and what is still being understood. What remains beneath them is not an answer, but a person meeting themselves honestly. Dear You is for every version of the self that has been loved, misunderstood, disappointed, forgiven, abandoned, protected, and carried forward. For the parts that are easy to embrace, and the parts that require a little more patience. A letter without a recipient, perhaps. Or one addressed to everyone.