A Letter to My Younger Self
Pink. You think it’s something to be ashamed of – too delicate, too much, too girly. You tell your-self you are not like the other girls. But you are. And that unsettles you. You’ve spent so long try-ing to prove that you are different, that you are worthy. But tell me – has it ever been enough? Did you ever get that validation you were searching for? Let me tell you the truth – it was always within you. You were always worthy. You never had to earn it. But I see the way you look at them – with rose tinted glasses and hearts in your eyes. Stop being afraid. Claim it. You long to be free like them. Confident like them. Well, now you are. You became the person you wanted to be: an artist.
I see you. I see the way you shrink yourself to fit expectations that were never yours to begin with. I see how you second guess your emotions, push them aside, convince yourself they are not a priority to be felt. I see you how soften your edges, smooth yourself out until you are bare-ly recognisable to yourself.
This painting is for you. For the girl who was told to toughen up, to be anything other than what she was. For every version of you that was deemed “too much”. It is a reclamation of what was taken from you, what you were told to leave behind. I know what was taken from you. I know the weight you carried. But you survived. You Became. You shined. You chose pink. Not because someone told you to, but because for so long, you were told not to. Because I once made it a symbol of everything, I was ashamed of. But we don’t anymore. I see now that those insecurities were never mine to hold – they belonged to those who projected them onto me. And I refuse to carry them any longer.
They were wrong. I was wrong.
Pink is not weak. Pink is not childish. It is not something to be dismissed. In this painting, pink is not an apology. It is a rebellion. It is softness and power intertwined, each making the other stronger. I painted the body with depth and rawness because healing is not smooth or polished – it is textured, messy, real. When you look back on our story, I hope these brushstrokes take the weight off your shoulders. Every mark on the canvas is a whisper to you: you are allowed to take up space. You were born to take up space.
This painting exists because you existed. Because you kept going – even when it felt impossible. You did it. You dared to feel deeply, to dream, to hope. Even when you were told to shrink, to apologise for taking up too much room. It is proof that softness is not fragility but resilience. That femininity is not something to be stripped away, but something to stand in unapologetical-ly. That you, in all your versions, have always been enough. You never had to change. With every stroke, with every layer I remind you: you were always enough.
With all my love,
Your older, wiser self