Dear Ja’Nae,

I know you've been gone for a while.

Not gone like disappeared. Gone like… quiet. Like you stopped taking up space the way you used to and idk if anybody really noticed except you.

I noticed though.

The last five years took something from you that you don't talk about out loud.

Covid hit and the whole world paused but your life kept moving in ways that didn't make the news. People you called sisters showed you who they really were when things got hard. And that kind of hurt? It don't just heal on its own. It sits with you. Changes how you move. Changes who you let in. Changes how much of yourself you're willing to show before you start looking for the exit.

Your mind — the same one that makes you brilliant and creative and able to see the whole picture before anyone else — started working against you. started feeling like unfamiliar territory. The ADHD. The anxiety. The constant noise of trying to figure out who you even are now after everything that reshaped you. And somewhere in the middle of all of it you stopped being sure of who you were outside of what you could do for people.

That's a lot to carry. That's a lot to carry alone.

And you did it quietly. Like you always do.

I'm not writing this to reopen wounds.

I'm writing this because I need you to know that none of it meant you were too much. None of it meant you were hard to love. None of it meant you were behind or broken or running out of time.

It meant you were human. Going through genuinely hard things. In a world that doesn't always make space for Black women to fall apart without someone calling it weakness.

You were not weak.

You were grieving things that didn't come with funerals. Friendships that ended without closure. Versions of yourself that quietly retired before you were ready to let them go. Dreams that got put on hold so long they started to feel like they belonged to someone else.

You grieved all of it.

You kept going. Even when keeping going felt like the hardest thing you'd ever been asked to do.

But I need you to hear this —

N O N E of that was your fault.

Not the seasons that broke you open. Not the ways you coped that you're not proud of. Not the time it took. Not how long you've been quiet.

None of it.

You realized you don't have to have it figured out. You don't have to be fully healed to begin. You don't have to be anything other than exactly who you are right now —

You are not behind. You are not too late. You are not too much or not enough or any of the other lies you let live rent free in that beautiful, overcrowded mind of yours.

You are valued. Not for what you produce. Not for how much you give. Not for how well you hold it together.

Just for being her. Just for being you. Just for still being here after everything that tried to take you out.

I forgive you too.

For disappearing.

For people pleasing your way through seasons that deserved your boundaries.

For shrinking.

For the times you gave everything to people who weren't even thinking about you half as much as you were thinking about them.

You were doing the best you could with a heart that's always been too big for the rooms people tried to keep you in.

🔊Come back now though.

Not for anybody else. Not to prove something. Not with a whole plan and a perfectly curated comeback.

Just come back. To yourself. To your dreams. To the girl who taught herself to create something from nothing because she always knew she was built for more.

She's still here. She never actually left. She's been waiting on you with a warm cup and absolutely zero judgment. ☕

You are seen. You are forgiven. You are valued. You are so deeply, unconditionally loved.

With everything I have, You — the one still unfolding.