Category: Healing

  • Letter to Myself

    Dear 2026 Kirsten, This year, do it for you. Not to make someone like you, not to keep the peace, not to stop someone from getting mad. Don’t let the fear of losing someone chain you in place. The ones who are truly worth your heart won’t walk away. Be kind, but don’t shrink yourself…

  • When Belonging Feels Out of Reach

    Lately, I’ve been sitting with a heavy truth: I don’t feel like I belong anywhere. Not in rooms filled with laughter, not in quiet corners of conversation, not even in the spaces I’ve carved out for myself. It’s a strange ache—this feeling of being a burden, of not knowing how to ask for help without…

  • Letter to my father…

    Dear Dad, I know, deep in my heart, that alcoholism is a disease. I know you didn’t choose this—no more than anyone would choose to suffer from cancer. Still, knowing that doesn’t lessen the pain of watching it pull you further away from us, from me. I understand you carry a heavy past—a pain that’s…

  • The Fragile Facade: Hiding Pain in Plain Sight

    I wear a mask. Not the kind you see, but one that hides the fractured pieces of who I really am. Deep down, I feel like a fraud. Imposter syndrome claws at my mind, whispering that I don’t belong, that I’m unworthy, that I’m deceiving everyone around me. The noise in my head is deafening,…

  • Coffee Trend

    If I were to sit down for coffee with my younger self, 18-year-old me wouldn’t have shown up. She’d be curled up in bed, staring at the ceiling, drowning in a silence that screamed louder than words. At 18, my world had been shattered. Trust—something so fragile—was obliterated by someone who took what wasn’t theirs…

  • Drowning in Silence

    It’s so easy for others to say, “Just be yourself,” as if being myself hasn’t already cost me so much. As if feeling everything so deeply isn’t a burden I carry alone. It’s easy for them to say, “You’re not alone; you have friends,” but how can that be true when their lives move forward—partners…

  • Second Place is the First Loser

    There’s a quiet ache that grows when you realize you’ve never been anyone’s first choice. It builds in the silences, in the spaces between their absence and their occasional return. Always there when it’s convenient for them—never when you need them most. They tell me not to change, to stay as I am, yet here…

  • The Hardest Lesson I’ve Learned

    It took me my entire life to finally understand: words mean nothing without action. People can fake words. They can look you in the eyes and say, “I love you.” They can promise, “I want to be with you.” And then, just like that, they can walk away. But actions—actions don’t lie. You can’t fake…

  • Things I want to say

    I miss you, but I can’t even say what it is I truly miss. Did you ever really want me in your life? Or was I just filling a space until something—or someone—you deemed better came along? Do you ever think of me? Or am I just another fleeting memory, someone you had fun with…

  • Hiding in Plain Sight

    I put my phone on do not disturb to shut out the world. I say I need time away from social media and it’s better for my health. The truth is, with my phone off, I can hide without having to put up a false front. Even though I am much better alone now, than…