For my healing, and for every woman who has lived unseen.

Dear You,

Three decades.
That’s how long I stood beside you, believing—hoping—you’d one day look past the version of me you had created in your mind… and truly see me.

But you never did. And now, you never will.

You saw what you wanted to see.
The caretaker. The peacekeeper. The loyal one.
You saw someone easy to silence, easy to shape.
But what you never saw—what you never chose to see—was me.

The real me.
The woman behind the quiet sighs and late-night tears.
The woman full of dreams, opinions, desires, and fire.
The woman who stayed even when her soul whispered, “You’re fading.”

You didn’t see her because it wasn’t convenient for you.
Because seeing me would’ve meant facing yourself.

You dismissed my pain as drama.
My boundaries as rejection.
My needs as weakness.
And over time, I started believing it too.
I began to vanish in the version of love you fed me—a love built on conditions, control, and quiet compliance.

But here’s what you didn’t realize:

I never stopped existing.
I was still there—beneath the surface, holding on, waiting for the day I could finally exhale.

That day has come. And with it, a truth that no longer hurts… it liberates:

You never really knew me. And now, you never will.

Not because I’m hiding. But because I’m healing.
Because the parts of me you ignored for thirty years?
They’re no longer up for negotiation.

I’ve outgrown the story you tried to keep me trapped in.
And I’ve finally remembered who I am.

You don’t get to know the woman I’ve become.
The woman who laughs fully, sleeps peacefully, walks freely.
The woman who no longer performs to feel worthy.
The woman who no longer fears your disapproval, your gaslighting, your rewriting of history.

You don’t get to meet her.
Because you buried her for too long—and now she’s risen, not for you, but for herself.

So if you’re wondering why it feels different now, why I’m not looking back, why my silence is louder than any scream—

It’s because I finally closed the door.
And on the other side of it, I am free.

Not angry.
Not bitter.
Just done.

You never knew me.
And now, you never will.

—Me