The envelope had been buried at the bottom of the box for eleven years. Inside, a single sheet of paper, folded into a tight square, with four words on the front in her own handwriting: Para cuando más duela.
Valentina’s hands trembled as she held it. She was thirty-four now, not twenty-three. The girl who had written this letter had been fresh out of a breakup that felt like a death, drowning in a job she hated, living in a studio apartment with a leaky faucet that cried with her every night.
She took out a new envelope. She wrote on the front: Para la próxima vez que duela. Libro Querido Yo Vamos A Estar Bien
You will forget who you are. That’s the scariest part. But then, slowly, you’ll remember. You’ll remember that you love yellow flowers. That you laugh too loud at your own jokes. That you’re afraid of flying but you love airports because of the possibilities.
But that younger self had still picked up a pen. The envelope had been buried at the bottom
And inside, just four words:
But here’s what I need you to know: you survive it. Not the movie version where you bounce back and become a CEO. The real version. The one where you learn to make tea again. Where you go back to that park bench where you used to sit together, and you sit there alone, and you don’t die. The sun sets. You go home. You brush your teeth. You do it again the next day. She was thirty-four now, not twenty-three
We are going to be okay. Not perfect. Not fixed. But okay. And okay is a beautiful place to live.