Dear me,
Come here for a minute. I know that voice. The one that keeps whispering, “You are late.”
Late to become.
Late to build.
Late to start.
Late to become.
Late to achieve.
Late to figure it out.
Late to build the life you imagined.
Late because someone younger is already there.
Late because someone else seems to have done more, earned more, become more.
I need you to say no to that voice. Not today. You are not late. You are in time. You are not behind your life. You are living it.
I hear the questions in your head.
Why did it take me this long?
Why did I not know about this earlier?
Why am I only just finding my voice?
Why are other people already doing what I am just beginning to do?
And I know how quickly those questions turn into quiet accusations.
You should have started earlier.
You should be further by now.
You have wasted too much time.
But I need you to hear me clearly.
You are not late.
You are on time.
In fact, you are in time.
Some things could not have been built by the version of you from ten years ago, who had not lived enough yet. She had not asked enough questions. She had not healed enough.
She had not discovered enough of herself. She did not yet have the language for what she carried.
You needed some of the years you now call delay. You needed the confusion, the detours to become. You needed to live through certain things before you could recognize what had always been inside you. So, stop standing at the door of your future mourning how long it took you to arrive there.
You are here now and that matters.
Look where you are now, what you know now that you did not know before. Look at the things you have survived, the things you have unlearned, the things you are beginning to understand about yourself.
Do not dismiss those things because they do not come with a trophy. Some of the most important things happening in you cannot be photographed. You are becoming and becoming has a timing of its own. So, when that voice comes again and tells you that you are behind, I want you to answer it.
Say after me:
I am not late.
I am on time.
I am in time.
Say it again. Say it until the voice in your head gets tired of arguing. Say it 100 times. Say it 10,000 times. Say it 1,000,000 times if you have to. Because I want this truth to become louder than the fear.
You are not racing against another person’s clock. Their chapter is not your deadline, neither is their marriage your deadline. Their business is not your deadline, nor their money. Their accomplishments are not your deadline, and their visibility is not either. Your life is not late because someone else’s life moved faster. And listen to me carefully:
Time is for you.
Time is not standing somewhere ahead of you, mocking you.
Time is carrying you.
There are things you could not have understood five years ago because you had not yet lived what taught you to understand them. There are doors you were not ready for. There are versions of you that had to die quietly so this version could breathe. There are things you are building now that require the woman you are becoming not the woman you were.
So, stop treating your past as evidence that you have failed. Your past is evidence that you have been becoming.
And I know you want everything now. I know you sometimes look at the distance between where you are and where you want to be and panic. But breathe.
You do not have to race another person’s timeline. You do not have to punish yourself for what you did not know before you knew it. You only have to honour what you know now. Use what is in your hands. Begin where you are. Build from here. And please remember this:
Time is not against you.
Time has been forming you.
Time has been teaching you.
Time has been bringing you here.
You are not arriving late to your life. You are arriving with everything the journey has taught you. So breathe. Lift your head. There is still so much life ahead of you. And yes, my dear,
Time is for you.
With love,
Me
Leave a Reply