Disclaimer: How I wish someone would send this kind of letter to me, not just in words, but in truth. Maybe that’s why I write it, because sometimes the letters we long to receive are the ones we end up writing ourselves.

⸻

To you,

I know I’ve hurt you more times than I care to admit. And it breaks me that it’s always you, the person I love most, who ends up carrying the weight of my sharp words, my moods, my silences. You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve to be wounded by the very love that’s supposed to make you feel safe.

The truth is, I don’t hurt you because I don’t love you. I hurt you because I do. Because with you, I am unguarded. I let myself fall apart, I say things without filters, I unravel in ways I never would in front of anyone else. And in that closeness, I forget how fragile the heart I hold really is.

But love isn’t supposed to be an excuse. You shouldn’t have to endure pain just to prove your love for me. Forgiveness should not be the foundation of our story, it should only be the bridge when we stumble, not the path we walk every day.

I’m sorry. For every time I’ve made you question if my love was worth the hurt. For every time I chose anger over patience, pride over gentleness, silence over honesty. I don’t want to lose you to the very storms I create.

If there’s one thing I’m learning, it’s this: loving you means being careful with you. It means holding back the words that can cut, and choosing instead the words that heal. It means remembering that the person who loves me enough to stay deserves my tenderness more than anyone else.

So tonight, I write this not as an excuse, but as a promise: I will learn to love you better, softer, kinder. Because I don’t want to be the reason for your scars, I want to be the reason you heal.

Always,

Me

⸻

There are moments when I catch myself wishing that the kind of love I write about would also find me. That someone would hold me with the same gentleness I long to give, that someone would write me the words I pour into these pages. How many of us walk through life longing to be loved that way? To be seen in our flaws but not punished for them. To be forgiven, yes, but more than that, to be cherished gently, carefully, as if our hearts are something precious and not something to be tested.

I long for that. To be loved by someone who understands that I, too, break sometimes. That I carry wounds I don’t always talk about. That I don’t need perfection, only patience, that I just want to be treated with care. To have someone notice the quiet battles I fight. To be held when I can’t hold myself. To be loved not only for my strength, but also in my weakness.

I think that’s the heart of longing: not for grand gestures, but for presence. For consistency. For someone who knows how to stay soft even when life turns hard.

I wonder if that’s why I keep forgiving so much. Because a part of me believes that if I show the love I long for, maybe one day it will return to me. But if I’m honest, there’s a quiet ache in waiting. An ache in writing letters I’ll never receive, in hoping for apologies that may never come, in wishing for gentleness from people who only know how to love in storms.

Still, I hold on to the thought that the love I dream of is not impossible. Somewhere, someone will see me not as difficult, not as too much, but simply as worth loving well. And until then, I’ll keep writing these words, both as a reminder of what I deserve, and as a prayer that one day, someone will mean them for me.

Love,

ANA 💋

______

Aletheia (Αλήθεια): an ancient Greek word meaning truth not just facts, but the act of uncovering what is hidden and bringing it to light.

I was wandering through the quiet aisles of an old bookstore in Barcelona, the kind where the air smells of paper and time itself. My fingers trailed along the spines, scanning titles half-forgotten, half-remembered. Then, tucked between a dusty philosophy tome and a worn poetry collection, a small book caught my eye.

Opening it at random, I read a single line: “In the pursuit of Aletheia, one uncovers not just what is, but what has always been hidden within.”

The word lingered on, Aletheia. Truth, revelation, uncovering what is hidden. It resonated with something I had been feeling but couldn’t name. I love this word because it captures exactly what I want from this letter to myself: honesty, vulnerability, and the courage to face my inner truths. Using Aletheia as the title reminds me that this is a space where I can speak freely, reflect deeply, and truly see myself without pretense.