I followed the map they gave me. Worked hard. Smiled when it hurt. Said thank you when I should’ve said “no.” Tried to be good. Tried to be liked. Tried to be small enough to fit into a life that was never actually made for me. I climbed the ladder and found the top felt exactly like the bottom, just with fewer people asking if I was okay. They said this part, this middle, was supposed to be golden. Mostly, it feels like grief in a nice blouse. Like I’m starring in a show that got renewed for too many seasons. Like I built a life I forgot to live inside. And the worst part? It almost worked. I almost convinced myself this was fine. That low-grade disappointment is just part of being an adult. That aching is normal. That disconnection is the cost of growing up. Then one morning, I pulled on the identity they gave me and realized: “I am way too big for this little coat.” It was never tailored for me. I just kept contorting, shrinking, smoothing the seams, trying to be agreeable enough, quiet enough, competent enough to make a costume feel like skin. Now I’m tugging at the sleeves. Unbuttoning the guilt. Standing in the mirror asking: “Whose damn hat am I wearing, and why?” Because it sure as hell isn’t mine. It’s some inherited costume piece from a life I never agreed to. The respectable professional hat. The keep-smiling-through-it hat. The mom-wife-worker-boss-friend-beautiful-on-the-outside-and-empty-on-the-inside hat. And it’s itchy as hell. Then there’s the other hat. The one I don’t talk about in polite company. The one lined with silence and stitched in fear. The I’m fine hat. The no one can know what happened to me hat. The cover the bruises and smile hat. The keep the secret or you won’t be safe hat. That hat is heavy. Soaked through with old panic and newer shame. It’s the hat I wore when I needed to survive. I’m tired of surviving in disguise. I want to stand here, bareheaded and unhidden, and say this clearly: I don’t owe anyone my silence. I don’t owe anyone my shame. I don’t need to keep wearing pain just because it fits.

You did not rise with fire in your chest. You did not wake to a burst of clarity or a soundtrack that made your courage feel larger than life. You opened your eyes with a heart that felt too heavy and a hope that was quieter than a whisper. There was no applause for the effort it took to greet another morning. There was only you, breathing through something that still felt impossible. Life asked you to keep going long before you felt ready. You did not finish every task. You did not clean the kitchen or answer every message. You forgot appointments. You left laundry waiting. Some days, you stayed in the clothes you slept in because anything more was too much. You did not move with elegance. You moved, and that was enough to keep you here. You showed up in small ways. You made it through long nights with nothing but a dim light and a quiet willingness to try again. You took your medication. You brushed your teeth when you could. You said no to situations that hurt, even when the silence afterward felt heavier than the moment itself. You made it to the couch when the bed felt like an anchor. You whispered “enough” into spaces that felt too loud to hold you. Healing did not arrive with celebration. It slipped in quietly like morning light across the floor. It appeared in moments when you drank water instead of nothing. It showed up when you let someone move a little closer. It revealed itself in the truth you finally told yourself on days when no one else knew how hard it was to keep going. You did not keep living because you felt whole. You kept living because something inside you refused to disappear even when the effort felt clumsy. Even when the progress was too small to see. Even when the future felt like a place you could not imagine reaching. You are still healing. That is not a setback. It is proof. You are the living evidence of survival. You are the quiet continuation of a story that could have ended but didn’t. You are what endurance looks like when no one is watching. You are still here, and that is enough.

This is where words can find their wings. Bring your drafts, your fragments, your messy paragraphs, your creative sparks. Every writing project deserves a place to land, and this is where it can grow while it finds its shape. I’ll be sharing my own work here too — letters, chapters, short stories, poems, and the pieces I’m building behind the scenes. Some will be polished. Some will be raw. All of it will be real. You can post anything you’re working on. A sentence. A page. A project. A beginning. You can ask for feedback or place it here like a stamp in your passport — proof that you’re moving through something. Your writing doesn’t have to be neat or complete. It just has to be yours. Love Always, Jelly Bean