The Dear You Project 🤍

What happened to you, my dear?

What happened to the promises you whispered to yourself when no one else was listening?

What happened to the fire that made impossible things feel ordinary?

What happened to the girl who refused to let “no” be the final answer?

You are enough, baby girl.

Even if the world forgets to tell you…

your son never has.

His little eyes still see a superhero hiding beneath the exhaustion.

Somewhere along the way, you became so committed to loving him unconditionally that you quietly forgot how to love yourself.

You shop for everyone else.

You clean homes so families can breathe easier.

You homeschool your son with patience you don’t even give yourself.

You answer messages.

You share resources.

You encourage strangers.

You celebrate everyone else’s victories.

You make room for everyone…

…except you.

So tell me—

Who’s pouring back into you?

Do you remember the tenth-grade girl who wrote letter after letter until someone finally said yes?

The one who earned the McNamara Scholarship because she refused to believe her circumstances defined her?

Do you remember writing essay after essay, winning scholarships, opening doors that weren’t built for you?

Where is the woman who could walk into chaos and build systems from scratch?

The one who could organize a business, lead a team, solve impossible problems, and somehow still make people feel seen?

Where is the woman who believed she belonged in every room she entered?

What happened to the dreams?

The sunrise workouts.

The books you promised yourself you’d finish.

The passport waiting for stamps.

The business with your name on the door.

The house overlooking the ocean.

The mornings that began with prayer instead of panic.

The laughter that came so easily.

The version of you that believed your best years hadn’t happened yet.

When did survival become your entire personality?

When did you start apologizing for taking up space?

When did you convince yourself that everyone deserved grace…

…except you?

Somewhere between doctor’s appointments, therapy sessions, school meetings, cleaning houses, unpaid bills, broken sleep, and trying to keep the lights on…

You disappeared.

Not all at once.

Just little pieces at a time.

You kept giving away parts of yourself until you forgot there was a woman beneath the titles.

Mother.

Provider.

Caregiver.

Problem solver.

Survivor.

But before all of that…

There was you.

And she’s still here.

Buried beneath the worry.

Waiting beneath the fear.

Quietly hoping you’ll come back for her.

Love your son deeply.

Fight for him fiercely.

Protect him with everything you’ve got.

But don’t abandon yourself while you’re raising him.

Because one day, he’ll become the man who remembers the woman who raised him.

Let him remember a mother who chose herself, too.

A mother who healed.

Who laughed again.

Who chased impossible dreams.

Who took risks.

Who rested without guilt.

Who learned that loving herself wasn’t selfish—

it was the greatest lesson she could ever teach her son.

So here’s your reminder…

It’s not too late.

Not too late to dream again.

Not too late to rebuild.

Not too late to trust.

Not too late to forgive yourself.

Not too late to become the woman you’ve been grieving.

She never left.

She’s simply been waiting…

for you to remember who she is.

With love,

You.🩶

You entered my life during a season of grief.

I was searching for peace after surviving a relationship that demanded pieces of me I could no longer afford to give away. You felt different. You gave me room to breathe. You let me be myself. I mistook that freedom for safety.

Looking back now, I realize there is a difference.

I met you while carrying my own wounds, but yours were older. Heavier. The kind that had been following you long before I arrived. The kind that shaped the way you viewed love, trust, family, and commitment. I listened to your stories and my heart broke for the little boy hidden behind the man. I wanted to protect him. I wanted to wrap him in understanding and convince him that not everyone leaves.

The problem was that I was so focused on saving you that I forgot to save myself.

I ignored the warning signs because they didn’t look like warnings. They looked like pain. They looked like trauma. They looked like someone who needed to be loved harder than everyone else.

What I didn’t understand then was that love cannot heal a person who has not decided to heal themselves.

I was building a future while you were still trying to survive your past.

I had plans. Dreams. A vision for the life I wanted. A family. Stability. Partnership. When you asked me to build that future with you, I believed you. I believed every promise because I would have never spoken those words unless I intended to keep them.

Then the moment came when that dream became real.

The moment I told you I was carrying our child.

And the moment you left.

There are heartbreaks that people recover from quickly. Then there are heartbreaks that split your life into two versions of yourself: the person you were before and the person you became afterward.

For years, I asked myself the same questions.

Why wasn’t I enough?

Why did this happen to me?

What could I have done differently?

The answer took me years to find.

Nothing.

Because the truth was never about my worth.

You were fighting battles that existed long before me. Battles that I could not win for you. Battles that no amount of loyalty, patience, forgiveness, or love could erase.

I used to be angry.

Maybe part of me always will be.

I was angry that the most beautiful chapter of my life became one of the most painful. Angry that I had to carry responsibilities we were supposed to share. Angry that I spent years mourning someone who was still alive.

But healing has a strange way of changing the questions.

Now I don’t ask why you left.

I ask why I stayed emotionally attached to someone who had already gone.

And that answer taught me more about myself than you ever could.

You broke me in ways I didn’t know were possible.

But you also introduced me to a strength I didn’t know existed.

You showed me how fiercely I could fight.

How deeply I could love.

How much I could endure.

You gave me the greatest gift of my life, even if you never stayed around long enough to understand it.

Our son.

The child who forced me to become stronger than my heartbreak.

The child who gave purpose to my pain.

The child who reminded me every day that life continues even after disappointment.

For a long time, I wrote letters to you that I never sent.

Letters filled with anger.

Letters filled with questions.

Letters filled with grief.

This one is different.

This letter is not about getting answers.

It’s about setting them down.

Because after eight years, I finally understand that some people enter our lives as lessons rather than destinations.

I hope one day you find peace with the things that haunt you.

I hope one day you learn how to love yourself in the ways you struggled to love others.

I hope one day you become the man you promised you would be.

Not for me.

Not even for our son.

For yourself.

As for me, I’m still healing. Still growing. Still learning how to trust life after disappointment. But I’m no longer waiting for closure from someone who could never provide it.

I found that closure within myself.

So, Dear You,

Thank you for the pain.

Thank you for the lessons.

Thank you for the strength I discovered while surviving what you left behind.

And most of all, thank you for the child who taught me that even after devastation, something beautiful can still grow.

— Me

It was written in the quiet moments between growth spurts, unanswered questions, and the kind of love that reshapes you without warning.

It’s a reflection of becoming, of learning love in real time, of understanding that sometimes the most transformative relationships arrive before you feel ready. This is not just a letter; it’s a witness to growth, to grace, to the journey of learning how to hold another heart while learning how to hold your own.

This is for you & anywho whose given life 🤍

Dear You,

You arrived quietly, but nothing stayed the same.

You taught me that love doesn’t need preparation or permission. It doesn’t explain itself. It just shows up, steady and undeniable, and asks you to grow in its presence. Through you, I learned that the most demanding work can also be the most sacred and that exhaustion and gratitude can exist in the same breath.

For a long time, I searched for places where the love I gave; would return to me in equal measure. I didn’t always find that balance, and there were moments I felt worn thin by giving. But something shifted when I met your eyes. There was a knowing there. A quiet assurance that this bond would not be measured by effort, performance, or perfection.

There were seasons when I struggled to fully show up not because you were hard to love, but because I hadn’t yet learned how to hold myself with the same care. I questioned my ability to guide, to protect, to lead forward when I was still finding my footing. And yet, in ways I still can’t fully explain, your presence became my compass. Direction found me through you.

You brought light into spaces I didn’t realize had gone dim. You softened edges I had sharpened for survival. You reminded me how to be playful in a world that often feels too serious, too loud, too demanding. Through you, I remembered that joy isn’t something we earn I t’s something we allow.

Sometimes I recognize familiar echoes in your gestures, expressions, ways of being that feel like memories resurfacing. It makes me smile. It reminds me that love leaves traces, even when it transforms.

For a long time, I misunderstood what your arrival meant. I believed it signaled an ending that certain versions of life were now unreachable. I spent years looking backward, trying to retrieve pieces of myself that no longer fit. What I didn’t realize then was that you weren’t closing a chapter. You were opening one.

You were the beginning.

The path that followed wasn’t gentle, but it was honest. It asked me to choose growth over comfort, intention over habit. It required me to think beyond the self, to widen my vision, to raise my standards not out of fear, but clarity. Somewhere along the way, my heart steadied. My direction sharpened. My worth became undeniable.

You are relief when the heat is unbearable.

Warmth when everything feels cold.

Color after the storm has passed.

You are presence. You are grounding. You are my reason.

And when I am firm, when I ask more, when I push past ease it’s not because softness is absent. It’s because the world can be unkind, and tenderness deserves preparation. Loving you has expanded my capacity for empathy beyond what I knew was possible. It taught me how to see people fully especially those who feel deeply in spaces that demand toughness.

I’ve watched you grow into your own light; sharp, intuitive, vibrant in ways that feel effortless. There is wisdom in you. There is joy. There is something unmistakably real.

Life never promises us time. But while I am here, I choose devotion. I choose presence. I choose to show up with honesty and courage, doing the inner work so that what touches you is rooted, not reactive.

This letter is written with much love for you, eternally!

And for the becoming we continue to share.💙🤞🏽

Readers:

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for holding space for something tender. Some letters are written to be read immediately. Others are meant to wait, to grow into their meaning over time.

This one is rooted in love patient, evolving, and unfinished. And maybe that’s the point. We’re all still becoming.

With love,

A Note to My Sisters: The following letter contains honest reflections on trauma, including domestic violence, abuse, and mental health struggles. Please protect your peace as you read. This is a journey from the shadows back into the light.

Dear You,

I’m looking back at over these beautiful years of life, and the first thing I want to do is tell you to put your bags down. You have been carrying the weight of being the "oldest" since before you even knew your own name. You were the shield, the secret-keeper, and the bridge for everyone else, but I need you to know: you were just a girl.

I see you standing there, a young Black woman trying to find her place in a world that tried to shrink your spirit while over-sexualizing your curves. I see the barriers they built, the ones meant to keep a chubby, curly-haired girl from D.C. feeling like she was "too much" and "not enough" all at once. I know the sting of the bullying, the theft of your innocence, and the cold reality of domestic violence that surrounded you until it eventually followed you.

I know the heavy darkness that told you it would be easier to leave this world than to keep bleeding through it.

But you stayed.

You stayed through the confusion of religion and the wandering of the spirit, until you found your way to the truth that finally sustained you: Allahu Akbar. You realized that God is greater than your trauma, greater than the systems built against you, and greater than the grief of a father behind bars.

I am so proud of your resilience, but I am even more sorry that you had to be so strong for so long. You've became a warrior because the world gave you no choice, but in the process, you forgot that you were also allowed to be a garden. You deserved to be tended to. You deserved to be protected.

You’ve done enough, little one. You survived the fire, and you didn't just come out alive: you came out gold. I love you for the scars you tried so hard to hide. I love you for the curves you felt you had to apologize for. I love you for the faith that brought you to your knees and then picked you back up when you thought you couldn't stand.

From now on, I am taking over. You don't have to just survive anymore. I am going to love on you with the same fierce, unwavering loyalty you gave to a world that didn’t always love you back. I will be the protector you needed. I will be the peace you deserved.

You are finally safe with me.

With all the love you always deserve,

Me

Dear You,

I don’t know your story yet, but I know you have one; heavy in some places, beautiful in others, complicated in ways only you can understand. And that’s why I created this space.

Dear You is more than a blog.

It’s therapy with no appointment.

It’s healing with no judgment.

It’s releasing what sits on your chest without needing to name names or point fingers.

It’s journaling with a twist — a letter written to someone, or something, or even a feeling… without ever having to say who.

Sometimes we can’t tell the actual person how we feel.

Sometimes we don’t want to.

Sometimes it’s not safe to.

But the words still deserve somewhere to go.

This is that somewhere.

This is that safe space.

I’ve worn many titles ; daughter, mother, survivor, overcomer but the one that feels most honest right now is storyteller. I write to breathe. I write to understand myself. I write to keep from holding everything in until it grows too heavy.

Moving across the country, navigating motherhood with my son’s ADHD diagnosis, losing my father, facing postpartum depression; all of these moments shaped me in ways I’m still unraveling. And writing letters, even the unsent ones, helped me find myself again.

I want “Dear You” to be that for someone else.

A quiet corner of the internet where people feel seen without having to be exposed.

A community of release, reflection, and realness.

So here we are; the first page of something soft, honest, and sacred.

Dear You, thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. And if you choose to write your own letters whispered, typed, or tucked away, thank you for trusting this space to hold you.

With love and resilience, always 🤍

Amari Sol