LETTER 007

The Girl Who Had to Grow Up a Little Too Early

Dear you,

I don’t really know how to tell the story of my childhood without making it sound a little bit like the beginning of a movie. A thirteen-year-old girl, a fifteen-year-old boy, and a baby. Somehow, that baby was me.

My mom was only thirteen when she had me, and my dad was fifteen. When I think about those ages now, I genuinely cannot wrap my head around it. Thirteen is such a strange age to imagine as an adult, let alone as someone’s mother. At thirteen, I was probably more concerned with fictional characters, music, and whatever tiny problem felt like the end of the world that week. My mom, meanwhile, was raising an actual human being. She was basically a child raising another child, and somehow, she did it.

Then, when I was five, my sweet dad died in a motorcycle accident. My mom was eighteen.

Eighteen.

I sometimes think about that number and what it actually means. At eighteen, most people are only just beginning to figure out who they are. My mom was suddenly a single mother, raising me and trying to figure out how to keep moving forward without the person she had built her young life around.

From what I remember, she worked constantly. She had two jobs and somehow still managed to give me everything she could, and usually a little bit more. She was young, exhausted, and trying to figure life out while raising me at the same time. I obviously didn’t understand any of that when I was little. To me, she was simply my mom. She was the person who was there, the person who took care of me, bought me things, worked, worried, laughed with me, argued with me, and somehow kept going no matter what life put in front of her.

She was also the person I fought with the most.

And honestly, that probably makes sense when I think about it now.

Growing up with such a young mother created a relationship that was difficult to put into one category. Sometimes she felt like my mother, sometimes she felt like an older sister, and sometimes we probably behaved more like two sisters who had been forced to share a house and neither of us was particularly happy about it.

We fought. A lot.

There were difficult years, things that hurt, things neither of us knew how to handle, and moments between us that I wish had happened differently. Our childhood together wasn’t exactly peaceful, and there were things that shaped both of us in ways I don’t think we understood at the time.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started looking back at my mom with a little more understanding. She was growing up while I was growing up. She was learning how to be a woman while learning how to be a mother, and she was carrying experiences no eighteen-year-old should have had to carry.

Then, when she was twenty-four, she made another huge decision that would change both of our lives.

We moved to Norway.

Just me and her.

Alone.

And here is the embarrassing part: I didn’t even know Norway was a country.

I know.

I know.

But in my defense, I was eleven, and nobody had exactly sat me down and given me a comprehensive geography lesson before we moved across the world. So suddenly, there I was, in a country I knew almost nothing about, surrounded by a language I couldn’t speak and people I couldn’t communicate with.

I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t have my friends. I didn’t have my family. I didn’t understand what people were saying around me, and I had no idea how I was supposed to make friends when I couldn’t even have a proper conversation with them.

And I was angry.

So, so angry.

At the time, I didn’t see the move as my mom trying to give us a different life. I saw it as her taking me away from everything I loved. From my family. From my friends. From the places I knew. From the life that made sense to me.

I was depressed. I was lonely. And I missed Brazil constantly.

I missed my family. I missed my friends. I missed the feeling of being somewhere where I didn’t have to think about how to communicate or whether I belonged. I missed the familiarity of everything. Even the smallest things felt enormous when they were suddenly gone.

But eventually, slowly, things began to change.

It took me around six months to learn enough Norwegian that I could actually communicate with people. Six months of listening to a language I barely understood, trying to figure out what everyone was saying, attempting to answer back, and probably embarrassing myself more times than I would ever like to admit.

But I learned.

And once I could speak, I could make friends.

That changed everything.

Well… it helped.

I was still homesick. I still missed Brazil. I still missed my family and the friends I’d left behind. But suddenly, I wasn’t completely alone anymore. I started building a life here, even if a part of me was still somewhere else.

For years, we stayed in that same place. I went to school, made friends, grew up, and slowly began to feel like Norway wasn’t quite as foreign anymore. It became familiar. I knew the streets. I knew people. I had memories there. I had a little world of my own.

And then, after we had already lived there for years, we moved again.

This time, we weren’t moving to another country. It was only a little over an hour away within Norway, which probably doesn’t sound like much to an adult. But if you’ve ever been a teenager who has spent years building a life somewhere, an hour can feel like another universe.

To me, it felt like starting over all over again.

I had already spent years making friends and creating a life where we were, and suddenly I had to leave that behind too. New place, new people, new school, new routines, new everything. And honestly, I hated it in the beginning.

I missed the friends I’d made. I missed the familiar places. I missed knowing exactly where I belonged. I had already done the whole “new country, new language, new friends” thing once. I wasn’t particularly excited about doing a smaller Norwegian sequel.

But eventually, I did what I’d learned to do before.

I talked.

A lot.

I made friends. Lots of them.

And looking back now, I think all of those moves had something to do with the person I’ve become.

I’m a pretty easy person to make friends with because I talk. A lot. Like… a lot. Give me five minutes and I’ll probably tell you my entire life story, and if you give me ten, I’ll probably ask about yours too.

My friends now always joke that I somehow know someone everywhere we go. We’ll be somewhere completely random, I’ll recognize somebody, say hello, and immediately get the inevitable question:

“How do you know them?”

And honestly?

I don’t know.

I just do.

Somehow, I always know someone.

Maybe that’s what moving so much did to me. It made me adaptable. It made me comfortable talking to strangers. It made me learn how to walk into unfamiliar places and find a way to connect with people. Every time I had to start over, I learned how to find people, make friends, and slowly turn somewhere unfamiliar into somewhere that felt a little more like home.

Maybe that’s also why I can talk to almost anyone now.

If you put me in a room full of strangers, I’ll probably leave knowing at least three of them.

And yet, ironically, for someone who knows so many people, I can still feel completely alone sometimes.

I’ve jokingly called myself a “popular loner.”

Which sounds incredibly tacky when I say it out loud.

Like, oh, look at me, I’m so popular.

That’s not really what I mean.

I can know a lot of people. I can have friends everywhere. I can walk into a room and recognize five different faces. I can have conversations with people I’ve known for years and people I’ve only just met.

And still, sometimes, there is a little part of me that feels like it’s standing somewhere alone.

Maybe that’s because I’ve spent so much of my life saying goodbye.

Goodbye to people.

Goodbye to places.

Goodbye to versions of myself.

Every time you leave somewhere, you don’t just leave the place. You leave behind a version of yourself that existed there. The person you were with those friends, in that school, in that neighborhood, doesn’t completely disappear, but you can’t exactly go back and become her again either.

And some goodbyes never really stop hurting.

I miss my family every day.

And I still miss my dad.

I was only five when he died, so there are parts of him that I remember more through feelings than actual memories. Sometimes I wish I could remember more. I wish I could remember his voice better, his mannerisms, the little things he did that I might have forgotten simply because I was so young.

Sometimes I wonder what he would think of me now.

Who I would be if he had lived.

What our relationship would have been like.

What he would say if he could see my life now.

Would he be proud of me? Would we get along? Would he understand the person I’ve become?

Those are questions I’ll probably never have answers to, and I think that’s one of the strange things about losing someone when you’re so young. You don’t just grieve the person you lost. You sometimes grieve all the moments you never got to have with them.

I’ve also had some really difficult years growing up. Difficult relationships, difficult periods of my life, and years where I didn’t really understand myself or why I felt the way I did.

Eventually, in 2019, after years of not understanding what was happening with me, I was diagnosed with bipolar I disorder.

There had been manic episodes, depressive episodes, and a lot of confusion in between. For years, I wondered what was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I always understand my own emotions? Why did things sometimes feel so intense? Why did I sometimes feel like I was watching myself from the outside, trying to understand what was happening?

Getting an answer didn’t magically fix everything.

But it gave me somewhere to start.

With the right treatment and medication, things became easier to manage. I began to understand myself in ways I hadn’t been able to before, and I think there’s something important in that.

Sometimes you’re not broken.

Sometimes you just haven’t been given the right explanation for what you’re experiencing yet.

My childhood wasn’t easy, and my teenage years weren’t easy either. But when I look at the person I’ve become, I can also see where some of my strengths came from.

The girl who had to start over learned how to talk to anyone.

The girl who didn’t speak the language learned quickly.

The girl who was lonely learned how to make friends.

The girl who kept saying goodbye learned how to carry people with her.

And the girl who grew up watching her mother survive learned what strength could look like.

Because if there is one person I admire more than almost anyone, it is my mom.

Our relationship has always been complicated. We’ve hurt each other. We’ve fought like sisters. We’ve had moments where living together was incredibly difficult, and there are parts of our childhood that I wish had been different.

But I wouldn’t be here without her.

Literally.

And figuratively.

She worked two jobs. She raised me alone. She moved countries. She built a life from almost nothing, all while she was still incredibly young herself.

She’s one of the hardest-working women I’ve ever known.

And today, she’s an author. She’s writing her second book, which makes me incredibly proud of her.

It also feels strangely fitting when I think about my own relationship with writing, because maybe this blog didn’t really begin with me.

Maybe it began with her.

I grew up watching my mom write. She had hundreds of diaries. Hundreds. She was always writing something down, and she would buy me my own diaries too.

So I started writing.

Then came Tumblr.

Then more diaries.

Then notes on my phone.

And now this.

Letters After Midnight.

Maybe I’ve been writing my whole life because I grew up watching a woman use words to understand hers.

Maybe that’s something I inherited from her.

Not her handwriting. Not her stories.

But the need to put feelings somewhere outside of yourself when they’re too loud to keep inside.

And maybe that’s what this blog is for.

A place to put the things I don’t always know how to say out loud.

When I think about my childhood now, I don’t want to pretend it was perfect.

It wasn’t.

There were painful things. There were things I didn’t understand at the time. There were things I wish had happened differently, and there are memories I would probably handle differently if I could go back and look at them with the understanding I have now.

But there were beautiful things too.

There was my mom.

There were friends.

There were animals.

There were books and music and movies and all the little things that made me feel like myself.

There was Brazil.

There was Norway.

There were countless beginnings.

And countless versions of me.

I think that’s what growing up has taught me most: you can miss the life you had without wanting to become that version of yourself again. You can love where you came from and still be grateful for where you ended up. You can carry your past with you without allowing it to decide where you’re going next.

I’m proud of the girl who survived all of it.

I’m proud of the eleven-year-old girl who arrived in a country she didn’t even know existed and somehow learned a whole new language.

I’m proud of the teenager who had to start over again and still found a way to make friends.

I’m proud of the girl who lost her dad too young and somehow kept growing.

And I’m proud of the woman my mom became.

Maybe because, in a strange way, we really did grow up together.

She was a thirteen-year-old girl who became my mother, and I was the little girl who had to learn how to grow up beside her.

Neither of us knew exactly what we were doing.

We probably still don’t.

But somehow, we made it here.

And when I look at everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve lost, everything we’ve had to leave behind, and everything we’ve managed to build anyway, I think that’s pretty damn incredible.

Love,
C.

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LETTER 006

Always in My Heart, Never Again in My Life.

To the people I miss, but would never go back to.

Dear you,

There is a particular kind of heartbreak that comes with losing a friendship you never wanted to lose.

It’s a strange feeling, really. Missing someone you no longer want in your life. Remembering someone with love while knowing that letting them back in would probably be one of the worst decisions you could make for yourself.

It’s almost funny, in a way.

You can miss someone terribly and still have absolutely no desire to ever speak to them again. You can wish you could go back to a particular memory without wanting to go back to the person who was standing beside you in it.

And sometimes, you don’t even miss who they are anymore.

You miss who you were together.

You miss the inside jokes that would have made absolutely no sense to anyone else. The conversations that lasted until ridiculous hours of the night. The laughter over things that weren’t even remotely funny. The random updates about absolutely nothing, as if reporting every minor inconvenience of your day was a full-time job and they were your only employee.

You miss having a that person.

Someone you could send a stupid picture to without context. Someone who knew the backstory before you even finished the first sentence. Someone who was there for the little things, the big things, and all the completely insignificant things in between.

You miss the familiarity.

The comfort.

The version of life where you didn’t have to wonder whether someone you loved would eventually become a stranger.

And that’s the part nobody really prepares you for.

Because when a friendship ends badly, people expect you to be angry. They expect you to tell everyone what happened, explain why you walked away, list every reason the person no longer deserves access to you, and then move on as if the friendship never meant anything in the first place.

But what happens when it did mean something?

What happens when you genuinely loved that person?

When they were part of your life in a way that mattered? When you have photographs, memories, old conversations, and little moments that still make you smile before you remember how everything ended?

What happens when the person who hurt you is also someone who once made you incredibly happy?

I think that’s what makes friendship breakups so complicated.

There isn’t always one big, dramatic ending. Sometimes it’s a collection of smaller disappointments. The things you brushed aside because you loved them. The moments you told yourself you were overthinking. The times your feelings were treated like an inconvenience, as though being hurt by someone you trusted was somehow your own fault.

Sometimes you keep giving someone the benefit of the doubt until you realize you’ve practically opened a charity organization in their honor.

And somehow, you’re still the one paying for it.

You forgive things you probably shouldn’t have had to forgive. You explain your feelings in different ways, hoping that maybe this time they’ll understand. You try to be patient. You try to be fair. You try to remember that nobody is perfect, because you aren’t perfect either.

But there comes a point when you have to ask yourself an uncomfortable question:

Am I protecting this friendship because it’s good for me, or because I’m afraid of losing what it used to be?

Because sometimes, the friendship you keep fighting for exists only in your memories.

You’re holding on to the person they were when things were good, hoping they’ll become that person again. You’re remembering the love while trying to make sense of the disrespect. You’re defending the history you share, even when the present keeps showing you that something has changed.

And eventually, you get tired.

Not necessarily because you stopped loving them.

But because you finally understand that loving someone doesn’t mean you have to keep accepting the way they treat you.

I think one of the hardest things I’ve had to accept is that two things can be true at once.

I can love someone and no longer trust them.

I can appreciate what we had and still know that what happened between us was unacceptable.

I can remember the good times without pretending the bad times never happened.

And I can miss you without wanting you back.

That last part took me a while to understand.

Because for the longest time, I thought missing someone meant there was something left to fix. That if I still thought about them, if a memory still made me smile, if a part of me still wondered how they were doing, maybe I hadn’t really moved on.

But I’ve come to realize that healing doesn’t always mean forgetting.

Sometimes healing means remembering without reaching out.

It means hearing a song that reminds you of them and letting yourself feel something without immediately opening your messages. It means seeing something they would have found funny and smiling to yourself instead of sending it to them. It means coming across an old photograph and allowing yourself to miss that chapter of your life without trying to reopen it.

And yes, sometimes it means wondering whether they ever think about you, too.

Whether they remember the conversations.

Whether they ever laugh about the same ridiculous things.

Whether, somewhere in the middle of their ordinary day, they remember that you once knew each other so well.

I wonder about those things sometimes.

Not because I want to go back.

But because it’s strange to think that someone who once knew so many little details about your life can eventually become someone you know almost nothing about.

You go from knowing their favorite songs, their biggest fears, their family drama, their dreams, and what makes them laugh until they can’t breathe…

To not knowing what their life looks like anymore.

You don’t know what they’re doing on a Tuesday afternoon. You don’t know what they’re excited about, what they’re struggling with, or who they call when something good happens.

You become strangers with memories.

And maybe that’s what makes it hurt.

Not just losing the person, but losing your place in their life.

Still, I don’t think every friendship that ends has to become a story about a villain and a victim.

Sometimes people make choices that hurt us. Sometimes they fail us in ways we never expected. Sometimes they simply aren’t capable of giving us the kind of friendship we thought we had.

That doesn’t erase the good they brought into our lives.

But the good doesn’t erase the hurt, either.

And I refuse to believe that I have to hate someone to justify keeping my distance.

I don’t need to turn you into a terrible person to accept that you weren’t a good person for me to keep close.

I don’t need to expose every detail of what happened to prove that my feelings were valid.

I don’t need you to agree with my decision for it to be the right one.

And I certainly don’t need to wish bad things upon you just because things ended badly between us.

Actually, I hope you’re doing well.

I hope life is treating you kindly. I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re surrounded by people who love you, that you’re achieving the things you once told me about, and that you’re finding reasons to laugh until your stomach hurts.

I hope you’ve grown in the ways you needed to grow.

I hope I’ve grown, too.

And I hope that, wherever life takes us, we both become better people because of the things we’ve experienced.

But I hope all of that happens far away from me.

Because wishing you well doesn’t mean I want a front-row seat to your life again.

I can hope you find happiness without wanting to be part of it. I can be grateful for the years we shared without offering you another year of access to me. I can forgive you, in my own time, without handing you the opportunity to do the same thing all over again.

We don’t have to hate each other.

We don’t have to pretend we never mattered.

We don’t even have to forget.

We just don’t have to be friends anymore.

And honestly, there is something quite peaceful about finally reaching that point.

No dramatic speeches. No imaginary arguments in the shower where I suddenly come up with the perfect response three months too late. No checking your social media to see whether you’re happier without me, because apparently the human brain enjoys finding new ways to ruin a perfectly good evening.

Just peace.

Just distance.

Just acceptance.

And the quiet understanding that some people belong in your memories, not in your future.

If I ever cross your mind, I hope you remember the good things.

I hope you remember that I loved you genuinely. That I showed up for you. That I cared about the little things and celebrated your happiness as if it were my own.

I hope you remember the laughter, the conversations, the ridiculous moments, and the version of us that existed before things became what they became.

Because despite everything, I don’t regret loving the people I’ve loved.

Even the ones I had to leave behind.

They were part of my life. They taught me things. They gave me memories that I’ll probably carry for the rest of my life.

Some taught me what friendship should feel like.

Others taught me what it should never cost.

And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe not every person who enters your life is meant to stay. Maybe some friendships are beautiful for a season, even if the ending leaves you wishing things had happened differently.

And maybe growing up is realizing that you can be grateful for a chapter without wanting to read it again.

So, to the friendships I miss but would never return to, I hope you know that there was love there.

Real love.

The kind that doesn’t disappear just because the relationship does.

But there is also a version of me that had to learn to stop abandoning her own feelings just to keep other people comfortable. A version of me that finally understood that history isn’t a free pass to hurt me, and that knowing someone for years doesn’t automatically mean they deserve to know me forever.

I can miss you.

I can love you.

I can remember you fondly on some days and feel absolutely nothing on others.

I can hope that life gives you everything you’ve ever wanted.

And still choose not to let you back into mine.

Because sometimes, the most loving thing you can do for yourself is close a door without slamming it.

Not because you’re waiting for someone to knock. But because you’re finally done standing there, holding it open.

And if there’s one thing I want you to take from this letter, it’s this:

You don’t have to hate someone to outgrow them.

You don’t have to erase the memories to move forward.

And you don’t have to return to a place that hurt you just because a part of you misses what it used to be.

Some people will always have a little place in your heart.

That doesn’t mean they need a place in your life.

So I’ll keep the memories.

I’ll keep the lessons.

I’ll even keep the love, in whatever quiet, distant form it takes now.

But the access?

The closeness?

The privilege of being part of my everyday life?

That chapter is closed.

No hard feelings. No wishing you the worst. No secret plan to reunite five years from now because nostalgia suddenly decides to become my personal enemy.

Just love from a distance.

And a boundary that I’m no longer willing to negotiate.

Always in my heart, never again in my life.

With love, from a distance,

C.

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LETTER 005

A Little More About Me

Dear you,

I realized something recently.

I’ve written about moving out, love, distance, finding your person, and all the complicated little thoughts that seem to live permanently inside my head…

But I haven’t really told you much about me.

Not the serious stuff.

Not the things that sound pretty when written down.

Just… me.

The things I like. The things I loved as a kid. The things that somehow followed me into adulthood. The completely random pieces of my personality that, when put together, make absolutely no sense.

So, here we go.

I love anime.

A lot.

If you ever wondered what kind of person I am, you could probably learn quite a bit from the fact that three of my favorite anime are My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, and Naruto.

I refuse to rank them properly because choosing a favorite would feel like betraying the others, and apparently I am emotionally attached to fictional characters enough to consider this a real problem.

I also love books.

Fantasy, romance, dark romance, romantasy… give me a fictional world, morally questionable characters, impossible love stories, magic, heartbreak, enemies who probably shouldn’t be kissing but absolutely are, and I am happy.

Right now, I’m reading Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

Which means that, at this exact moment, my brain is somewhere between reality and Ketterdam.

I have always loved stories.

Maybe that’s why books, anime, movies, and TV shows have always meant so much to me. I like disappearing into other worlds for a while.

And apparently, I’ve always had a slight obsession with the creepy ones too.

I have always loved horror movies.

My favorite is The Grudge, which probably says something about me that I don’t want to investigate too deeply.

But then there’s Chucky.

I LOVE Chucky.

Although, to me, Chucky is less terrifying horror and more chaotic little man with anger issues who somehow keeps surviving everything.

And honestly, I think my childhood had something to do with that.

My mom was nicknamed Barbie and, because she looked like them, people used to joke that she was basically “Chucky’s Bride.”

So naturally, little me thought this was completely normal.

Other kids were watching cartoons.

I was watching a murderous doll.

Balanced childhood.

And speaking of childhood…

I loved Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Casper was a HUGE part of my childhood, and so was The Addams Family. I think I’ve always been drawn to things that are a little strange, a little dark, a little different.

Maybe that’s why I still love them.

I also used to collect Barbie dolls.

Like, really collect them.

And I had all the Barbie movies on DVD.

Which is especially funny because my name was actually supposed to be Barbara.

Yes.

Barbara.

As in Barbie’s real name.

My mom was obsessed with Barbie, and she was a very young teenager when she had me, so apparently naming me after Barbie was considered a completely reasonable life decision.

Somehow, I ended up with the name I have now.

Probably for the best.

Although “Barbara” would have made this whole Barbie collection thing a little too on the nose.

When I was younger, I also used to draw all the time.

I was obsessed with drawing Tim Burton characters. I used to spend so much time drawing them, and I was actually pretty good.

Then I stopped.

And I haven’t really drawn anything in years.

Which means that if I picked up a pencil today, there is a very real possibility that I would discover that all of my artistic talent left my body sometime around 2014.

I don’t know.

Maybe it’s still in there.

Maybe one day I’ll try again.

Maybe I’ll draw something terrible and convince myself it’s abstract art.

We’ll see.

Music has always been another huge part of my life.

I was an unapologetic One Direction girl.

I loved Justin Bieber.

And my all-time favorite is Ariana Grande.

She was a huge inspiration and role model for me growing up, and honestly, she still is in a lot of ways.

But then there’s Michael Jackson.

That man had a completely different part of my heart.

I was obsessed with him.

When he died, I was nine years old.

And I remember crying so hard that I ended up under the bed, screaming like I had just lost an actual family member.

Looking back, nine-year-old me was experiencing grief at a level that was probably extremely dramatic.

But I loved him.

I still listen to Michael Jackson every single day.

And yes, my future children will be listening to him too.

They don’t get a choice.

It’s basically a family tradition at this point.

I also grew up listening to Britney Spears, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and the Pussycat Dolls.

My childhood best friend and I used to dance to their songs in the garage like we were headlining a sold-out world tour.

There was no audience.

There was no stage.

There were probably two children, terrible choreography, and absolutely no reason for the confidence we had.

But in our minds?

We were Beyoncé.

Obviously.

And then there are animals.

Animals have always been one of the biggest parts of my life.

I’ve had cats, dogs, rats, birds, fish…

Basically, if it breathed and could somehow become my responsibility, I probably wanted it.

Today, I have two dogs and two cats.

My oldest dog is 17 years old.

I got him when I was nine, and I named him Ryan after Ryan from High School Musical.

Because apparently fictional characters have been naming the living things in my life since childhood.

My other dog is Bonnie, named after Bonnie from The Vampire Diaries.

And then there are my cats.

Blair Uva, named after Blair Waldorf.

Obviously.

And Killua Bakugo.

His first name was chosen by my boyfriend, because he wanted to name him Killua from Hunter x Hunter.

I chose Bakugo from My Hero Academia.

So technically, our cat is named after two anime characters.

Which feels very appropriate for this household.

When I look at all of these things together, I realize that maybe none of them are as random as they seem.

The books.

The anime.

The horror movies.

The drawings.

The music.

The Barbies.

The fictional characters.

The animals.

The little girl dancing in a garage like she was performing at Madison Square Garden.

They’re all pieces of the same person.

Some of the things I loved as a child disappeared for a while.

Some stayed.

Some grew with me.

And some became even more ridiculous.

But I think that’s one of the nicest things about getting older.

You don’t necessarily have to outgrow the things that made you happy.

Sometimes you just carry them with you.

You can be an adult with bills, responsibilities, a job, groceries to buy and laundry you keep pretending isn’t there…

And still get ridiculously excited about a new book.

Still watch anime.

Still love horror movies.

Still listen to Michael Jackson every day.

Still name your animals after fictional characters.

Still remember the feeling of dancing around the garage with your best friend like nobody else existed.

Maybe growing up isn’t about leaving those things behind.

Maybe it’s about realizing they were never childish.

They were just yours.

And honestly?

I think I’ll keep them.

Even if my future children complain about Michael Jackson.

They’ll survive.

Probably.

Love,
C.

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LETTER 004

Love, Distance & Finding Your Person

There was a time when I thought love was supposed to be easy.

Not easy in the sense that relationships never have problems, because even the most perfect couples still have arguments about stuff.

But I thought that when you met the right person, everything else would somehow fall into place.

Then I learned that sometimes finding your person doesn’t mean finding someone who lives five minutes away.

Sometimes it means finding someone on the other side of the world.

And suddenly love becomes a lot more complicated.

There is something strange about loving someone you can’t simply reach for.

You can’t just say, “Come over,” when you’ve had a terrible day.

You can’t spontaneously meet for a walk or fall asleep next to each other because you happen to feel like it.

Sometimes you have to measure love in phone calls, messages, countdowns and airport arrivals.

You learn how much a simple “I miss you” can actually hurt.

And you learn that airports can somehow be both the happiest and saddest places in the world.

I’ve learned that distance has a funny way of making you appreciate the smallest things.

A morning message.

A random picture of what they’re doing.

Falling asleep on a video call.

Hearing their voice after you’ve had a long day.

Knowing someone is thinking about you even when they’re hundreds — or thousands — of kilometres away.

Things you might normally take for granted suddenly become everything.

And maybe that’s one of the unexpected things distance teaches you about love:

You don’t need someone beside you every second to feel close to them.

But I also won’t pretend that distance is romantic all the time.

Sometimes it is lonely.

Sometimes you just want a hug and a phone screen isn’t going to do the job.

Sometimes you get tired of counting down the days until you see each other again.

Sometimes you wonder why you chose something that could be so difficult when there are probably easier ways to fall in love.

But then you remember the person.

Your person.

And somehow, the difficult parts become worth talking about instead of reasons to walk away.

Because finding your person isn’t necessarily about finding someone who makes life effortless.

Maybe it’s finding someone who makes you want to do the difficult things together.

Someone who makes you feel understood.

Someone you can laugh with until your stomach hurts and also sit in silence with without feeling like you need to fill it.

Someone who knows your weird little habits and somehow still chooses you.

Someone who feels like home, even when you’re far away from home.

I think there’s something beautiful about choosing someone over and over again.

Not because everything is perfect.

Not because you never disagree.

Not because you never get annoyed with each other.

But because underneath all of that, there’s still this quiet feeling of:

It’s you.

I’ve learned that love isn’t always grand gestures and movie moments.

Sometimes it’s sending someone a picture of your dinner because you know they’d want to see it.

Sometimes it’s remembering something they mentioned three weeks ago.

Sometimes it’s staying up a little longer because you don’t want the conversation to end.

Sometimes it’s knowing exactly what will make them laugh.

Sometimes it’s simply being there.

And sometimes love is packing a suitcase, getting on a plane, and crossing an ocean because there is someone waiting for you on the other side.

I don’t know if there is one specific moment when you realize you’ve found your person.

Maybe it’s not supposed to happen that way.

Maybe you just slowly notice that this person has become part of your everyday thoughts.

You start imagining the future with them without even realizing you’re doing it.

You start thinking in we instead of just me.

You start building little dreams that have two people in them.

And one day you look around and realize:

Oh.

It’s you.

After all the distance.

After all the waiting.

After all the goodbyes and hellos.

After the difficult days and the beautiful ones.

Somehow, through all of it, you found each other.

And maybe that’s what love really is.

Not finding someone who makes life perfect.

But finding someone you want beside you while you figure it all out.

Someone to laugh with.

Someone to grow with.

Someone to annoy for the rest of your life about leaving their clothes on the floor.

Someone to come home to.

Someone who makes an ordinary Tuesday feel a little more like home.

Maybe finding your person isn’t about finding the person who completes you.

Maybe it’s finding the person who makes you want to share the life you’re already becoming.

And after everything I’ve learned about love, distance, waiting and choosing someone…

I think that’s a pretty beautiful thing.

— C. ☾

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LETTER 003

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before Moving Out

Moving out is one of those things everyone makes sound incredibly exciting.

And it is.

You get your own place. Your own keys. Your own kitchen. Your own little corner of the world where nobody can tell you to clean your room because, technically, it is all your room now.

Except… I didn’t exactly move out alone.

I moved out with my boyfriend.

Which means I gained independence, but also gained someone who apparently believes that leaving one glass next to the sink instead of putting it inside the dishwasher is a perfectly reasonable lifestyle choice.

So, after moving out and learning that adulthood is basically a mixture of freedom, bills, cleaning and asking each other “what do you want for dinner?” every single day, here are some things I wish someone had told me.

1. You will suddenly care a lot about things you never cared about before.

I never thought I would have strong opinions about dish soap.

Or laundry detergent.

Or the price of toilet paper.

But apparently, this is adulthood. You start standing in the grocery store comparing prices like your life depends on it.

And when you live with your boyfriend, grocery shopping becomes a negotiation.

“Do we need this?”

“No.”

Five minutes later, it’s in the cart.

“Why did you buy this?”

“I don’t know. It looked good.”

Romance.

I also understand now why adults used to say things like, “Do you know how expensive that is?”

I get it.

I really, really get it now.

2. Your home doesn’t have to look perfect.

I think there’s a lot of pressure to make your first home look like those beautiful apartments you see online.

Everything matching.

Perfectly styled shelves.

Cool posters.

Cute little coffee table books.

Meanwhile, your reality might be a laundry basket sitting in the corner for three, four days, a random box you still haven’t thrown away and two people arguing over whose turn it is to do the laundry.

And that’s okay.

Your home is supposed to be lived in.

It’s allowed to be messy sometimes. It’s allowed to be unfinished. It’s allowed to slowly become yours.

You don’t need to buy everything at once.

Honestly, some of my favorite things in our home are the little things we’ve collected over time.

3. Living with your boyfriend is romantic… until you’re both hungry.

Nobody really tells you that living together means seeing all sides of each other.

The cute sides.

The sleepy sides.

And definitely the “what should we eat?” — “I don’t know, what do you want?” — “I don’t know” conversation that somehow happens approximately 400 times a week.

You learn each other’s routines.

You learn what annoys each other.

You learn that apparently two people can have completely different definitions of what “I’ll clean it later” means.

But you also get the little things. 

Cooking together. 

Watching something in bed.

Going grocery shopping together.

Laughing about something stupid that wouldn’t be funny to anyone else.

Coming home and knowing there’s someone there.

And honestly, those ordinary moments are probably some of my favorite parts of living together.

4. Freedom is amazing… but so is routine.

Nobody tells you how strange it feels to suddenly have complete control over your time.

We can eat dinner whenever we want.

We can stay in bed too long.

We can watch five episodes of something without anyone telling us to go to sleep.

We can also leave the dishes until tomorrow. And tomorrow. And maybe the day after that.

Until one of us finally looks at the kitchen and says: “We should probably do something about that.”

Until you eventually realize you have created a problem for Future You.

Poor Future You.

She didn’t deserve that.

We have learned that a little routine makes everything easier. I’ve been telling myself “If it takes less than 5 minutes to do it, just do it right now.”

Not a strict, Pinterest-perfect routine.

Just little things.

Cleaning before things get completely out of control.

Doing laundry before you’re down to your emergency underwear.

Buying groceries before you’re forced to make dinner out of random freezer food.

And trying to remember that “we’ll do it later” is not actually a cleaning system.

5. You might miss home even when you’re happy.

This is probably one of the biggest things nobody talks about. Even when you’re excited to move out, even when you love your new home, even when you’re happy living with your partner.

You can still miss where you came from.

Sometimes you miss your family.

Sometimes you just miss walking into a room and knowing exactly where everything is. And that’s okay.

Missing home doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision.

You can love your new life and still miss your old one. Both things can exist at the same time.

6. You’ll learn things about yourself — and each other.

Living together has a funny way of showing you who you really are.

You learn what kind of environment makes you feel comfortable. What kind of mornings you like. How you deal with stress. What you need when you’re upset.

And, perhaps most importantly, you learn that you and your boyfriend can apparently have very different opinions about the correct way to load a dishwasher. This is serious business.

But you also learn how to communicate.

How to compromise.

How to give each other space.

How to take care of each other.

How to build a life that belongs to both of you without either person losing themselves in it.

And I think that’s one of the most beautiful parts of growing together.

7. Don’t underestimate the cost of “little things.”

It’s never just the rent.

Internet.

Insurance.

Groceries.

Cleaning products.

Cat food.

Laundry detergent.

Toothpaste.

Something you forgot you needed until you desperately need it.

And suddenly you’re both looking at your bank account like:

“Where did it go?”

The answer is usually:

Life.

So before moving out, make a realistic budget.

Not a fantasy budget where you somehow spend almost nothing and never order food.

A real one.

Because apparently being an adult means budgeting for things you didn’t even know existed.

8. You don’t have to have everything figured out.

This might be the biggest one. Moving out can feel like crossing some invisible line into adulthood, suddenly you’re expected to know what you’re doing. But the truth is, we’re figuring it out as we go.

We can make mistakes.

We can buy something we don’t need.

We can forget something.

We can have a terrible cooking attempt.

We can rearrange the furniture five times because we still don’t know where anything belongs.

We can disagree over whose turn it is to clean the bathroom.

We can laugh about it later.

We’re learning.

That’s the whole point.

9. Your first home doesn’t have to be your forever home.

I think I used to imagine that moving out meant creating the home. The place where everything would finally be settled, but maybe your first home is simply the beginning.

Maybe we’ll move somewhere else one day.

Maybe we’ll live in another city, or even another country. 

Maybe our idea of what we want will change.

Maybe we’ll look back at this first place years from now and laugh at the things we thought were such a big deal.

And I think that’s beautiful.

Your home can grow with you. Your relationship can grow with you. And you don’t have to know exactly where you’re going yet.

⸻

Moving out has taught me that independence isn’t really about doing everything yourself.

Sometimes it’s about doing things together.

It’s making decisions together.

Paying bills together.

Figuring out dinner together.

Cleaning together.

Arguing about something completely ridiculous and then five minutes later laughing about it.

It’s learning how to build a home with another person while still figuring out who you are yourself.

And maybe adulthood isn’t this magical state where you suddenly become completely confident and responsible.

Sometimes you’re just standing in the kitchen at 11 p.m., eating something questionable straight from the fridge, while your boyfriend is next to you asking what you want to watch.

And you’re both wondering if you’re doing this whole life thing correctly.

Maybe that’s okay. Because we’re learning, we’re building something, we’re creating a little life of our own. And maybe that’s what moving out really is. Not just leaving somewhere.

But slowly creating somewhere that feels like home.

A place filled with our things, our routines, our arguments over stupid things, our laughter, our quiet nights, our plans, our mistakes, and all the little moments that probably don’t seem important now but one day we’ll look back on and miss.

Maybe we don’t have everything figured out.

But we’re here.

We’re together.

We’re building a life.

And for now, I think that’s more than enough.

— C. ☾

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LETTER 002

I Think I’m Finally Becoming Myself

There’s a strange thing about growing up. For the longest time, I thought becoming an adult meant finally figuring everything out.

You get older, you become more confident, you know what you want, you make better decisions, and somehow one day you wake up and think, Ah. There I am. I finally know who I am.

I’m starting to realize it doesn’t really happen like that. There isn’t a magical morning where everything suddenly makes sense.

Instead, it happens quietly. In the little moments you almost don’t notice.

You realize you don’t actually like something you spent years pretending to like. You stop saying yes just because you’re afraid of disappointing someone. You start choosing what makes you happy, even when nobody else completely understands it.

And somewhere along the way you look at yourself and think:

Oh. I’m becoming my own person.

For a long time, I think I was more concorned with who I was supposed to be.

The version of me that would make everyone happy. The version that made sense to other people. The version who had the right answers, made the right choices, looked like she had everything under control.

But growing up has taught me that there is a big difference between being the person everyone expects you to be and being the person you actually are.

And honestly?

The second one is much more terrifying.

Because when you stop following everyone else’s idea of who you should be, you’re left with yourself.

Your own opinions.

Your own dreams.

Your own mistakes.

Your own little weirdness.

Your own choices.

And for the first time, you have to decide what you actually want.

I’m 26 now, which still feel slightly strange to say.

Twenty-six sounds like someone who should have a five-year plan, know how taxes work, have a perfectly organized home, drink enough water, go to bed at a reasonable hour and never question what they’re doing with their life.

Meanwhile, I can spend twenty minutes deciding what to watch and then ending up rewatching the same show I’ve already seen three times.

So I guess we’re doing great.

But maybe adulthood isn’t about becoming this perfectly put-together person I imagined when I was younger. Maybe it’s about becoming comfortable with being a work in progress.

I’m learning that I don’t have to know exactly where I’m going.

I can change my mind.

I can outgrow things.

I can discover new interests.

I can want something different than I wanted a few years ago.

I can make mistakes and still trust myself to figure things out.

And maybe most importantly, I can stop feeling guilty for becoming someone my younger self couldn’t have predicted.

There are parts of me that I used to think I needed to change. Things I thought were too sensitive, too emotional, too much.

Now I’m starting to wonder if those things were ever really problems at all.

Maybe being sentimental is just another way of caring deeply.

Maybe getting attached to little things is why certain memories mean so much to me.

Maybe loving animals a ridiculous amount isn’t something I need to justify.

Maybe staying up too late thinking about life, getting excited over a new book, becoming emotionally invested in fictional characters, wanting to see new places, loving little cozy moments, dreaming about things that seem unrealistic—

Maybe those things are simply me.

And I don’t think I need to make myself smaller just because someone else wouldn’t choose the same life.

That’s one of the strangest parts of growing up. You slowly stop needing everyone to understand you.

Not because you stop caring about people.

But because you start understanding yourself enough that their approval isn’t the thing holding your identity together anymore.

I’m still figuring it out.

I still have days where I question myself. Days where I compare my life to someone else’s and wonder if I’m behind. Days where I think I should be further along by now. But then I remind myself that life isn’t a race to some imaginary finish line.

There isn’t a correct age to have everything figured out.

Maybe 26 isn’t supposed to be the age where I finally have all the answers. Maybe it’s the age where I finally start asking myself the right questions.

What do I actually want?

What makes me happy?

What kind of life feels like mine?

Who do I want to become?

And perhaps the most important one:

Who am I when I’m not trying to be who everyone else wants me to be?

I don’t have all the answers yet, but I think I’m getting closer. Not to some perfect version of myself.

Just to myself.

The real one.

The one who is still learning, still changing, still making mistakes, still getting excited over little things, still dreaming, still figuring out what comes next.

And maybe that’s what growing up really is. Not finally becoming someone. But slowly realizing that you already are someone.

You just needed the time and the courage to meet her.

I think I’m finally becoming myself.

And for the first time, I’m not in such a hurry to become anything else. ☾

— C.

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LETTERS

Welcome to Letters After Midnight.

There’s something about midnight that makes everything feel a little more honest.

Maybe it’s the quiet. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone else seems to be asleep, and for a few hours, there’s no pressure to be anything other than yourself. It’s usually around this time that my thoughts get a little louder — the things I’ve been thinking about all day, the things I haven’t said out loud, the memories I keep coming back to, and all the little dreams I’m still figuring out how to put into words.

That’s where Letters After Midnight came from.

I’ve always liked the idea of writing things down. Not necessarily because I have all the answers, but because sometimes writing is the only way to understand what you’re actually feeling.

I wanted somewhere to put all those thoughts.

A place to talk about life as it really feels — not just the pretty, perfectly edited version of it.

There will be stories about growing up, love, relationships, travel, hobbies, everyday life, things I’m excited about, things I’m struggling with, things I’m learning, and probably a lot of completely random little things too.

Some letters might be happy. Some might be messy. Some might be things I never quite knew how to say out loud.

And some might simply be about something that made an ordinary Tuesday feel a little less ordinary.

Why “Letters After Midnight”?

Because I think some of the most honest parts of us come out late at night.

The thoughts we don’t always share. The questions we don’t have answers to. The memories we suddenly miss. The dreams that seem a little more possible when the world is quiet.

I don’t want this to feel like a traditional blog where I pretend to have everything figured out.

I’m still figuring things out. This is more a place where I write for myself and if anyone else reads it then so be it. I hope you can relate to my letters!

I’m still becoming the person I want to be. I’m learning what matters to me, what I want from life, what I need to let go of, and what I want to hold onto.

And maybe that’s what I want this little corner to be about most of all.

Becoming.

I hope Letters After Midnight becomes a place where I can be honest without having to be perfect. A place where I can look back years from now and see little pieces of who I was at different moments in my life.

But I also hope it becomes something for you.

Maybe you’ll find a story that feels strangely familiar. Maybe something I write will make you laugh, make you think, or make you feel a little less alone in something you’ve been keeping to yourself.

Maybe you’ll simply stop by late at night with a cup of tea and read for a few minutes.

Whatever brings you here, I’m glad you’re here.

So, this is the first letter.

I don’t know exactly where this little corner of the internet will take me.

But I think that’s part of the fun.

Welcome to Letters After Midnight.

Stay for a while. ☾

– C.

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