When all this first began in May 2021, I would tell myself “someday I will write a best selling memoir and in it I will name the names of people who betrayed me. The friends and the so-called friends and coworkers and brands who left me without so much as a question or text. The ones who watched me burn from a safe distance as if we were strangers. In my chapters I would have said ‘look how wrong you were about me. Look how wrong you were to misjudge me and leave me’.”
But now, I think I will leave those people forgotten and unnamed. I will instead dedicate pages to the ones who didn’t abandon me. The ones who remained steadfast and dependable. The ones who cheered me on and checked in on me, never seeking to fix, but support me in ways I didn’t even realize I needed. The ones who never once questioned me, and who decided to love me no matter what was said, or done. The ones who understood that my love language became safety and trust, who let me go silent without taking offense. The ones who watched me shrink and become so small that I forgot how to speak, and had to learn all over again.
I will dedicate my book to them, and to myself too - because it was the both of use who learned together how to bring me forward again. They love me. And I love me too.
I think that alone is worthy of a memoir.
