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.

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.

October 20, 2026 0

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,

October 11, 2026 0