July Third, 2024

Dear Shwirly,

A lot is changing in my life, is about to change, and I am changing in many ways. I am trying to confront my past and reconnect with myself. I am trying to break up with the girl I love but it is hard. I am trying to reconnect with the best friends of my past life, and to think for myself void of my parents imposition. I am becoming more femme again. I just want to be pretty and to kiss boys. I am reflecting a lot on these past four years, and dreaming of who, where, why and what I want to become, experience, and evolve into as I continue into my twenties. Life is about to change in many ways and I know pain is impending. It feels strange to be in the position I am in, but it is also exciting. I want to be single by July 15th. I want to fall in love with a boy and fall out of love with a boy and allow life to move forward. I want to have casual sex and have fun and be a young, free person. I want what I couldn’t understand before. I had to leave it to appreciate it, to find myself through a new light. You always find your way back home. I value friendship now, and have a new appreciation for the past of all of my relationships. I am changing and it is scary and I don’t think this girl I love is able to understand why or how. She comes from a different world and that is okay. I want to fall in love with someone who is educated. I’m not a lesbian anymore, and I’m beginning to think I’m just as gay as the rest of us. I’ve learned that everything I have been taught about sexuality is all wrong. I now understand how my acne and eating disorder all played a role in my isolation and solitude during my senior year, and how enduring the last four years in the way that I did was inevitable. I want to dance again. I want to figure skate again. I want to write poetry again. I want to make jewelry again. I want to walk often again. I want to feel comfortable on my own again. I want to be my own person. I want to have a skincare routine: water, moisturizer, kosas sunscreen, micellar water, moisturizer, sleep. I want to love my body as she is. I want I want I want I want I want so much and it is all so beautiful. I am alive. Thank god. See you soon.

With love,

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