A Letter of Encouragement to My LGBTQ+ Younger Self

The words that might have saved me years of hiding. And a message of hope for every LGBTQ+ person who's ever felt alone.

Dear Little G,

I found that polaroid of you yesterday—tucked in an old journal, fading at the edges. Fourteen years old, eyes darting away from the camera, wearing three layers in the summer heat because you thought it would hide the parts of yourself you were terrified others could see.

God, I want to crawl through time and hold you.

You don't know it yet, but that constant ache in your chest isn't something broken that needs fixing. It's your truth trying desperately to breathe in a room where everyone told you to hold your breath.

Remember that night after your cousin's aniversário? When Tío Miguel drunkenly asked why you danced "like that" and everyone laughed? How you locked yourself in the bathroom and practiced standing differently, speaking deeper, moving less? I spent fifteen minutes trying to become someone else while my mother knocked, asking if I was sick.

I was sick—sick with the weight of performing, sick with fear, sick with the exhaustion of editing every word, movement, an…