Her dreams didn’t die all at once. They faded like a body losing warmth quietly, while the water boiled and someone called her name from the other room.
She tells you to chase yours because she didn’t. Because she stayed with a man, with a family, with the version of herself that always came second.
She was just like you. Sharp in the mind, soft in the places no one thought to protect. She gave too much because no one taught her she was allowed to keep anything.
That’s why she says, “Never compromise.” Not because she’s brave, but because she remembers how it felt to hand over pieces of herself and be thanked for it.
You remind her of the girl she buried under laundry and prayer. You speak too loudly sometimes, and she doesn’t stop you. You leave rooms without apologizing, and she watches half grief, half awe.
You are her unfinished sentence. The better ending she never wrote.
And still, she’s praying not for herself anymore, but that this world won’t ask you to shrink just to fit inside it.
Don’t give up. Because if you do, then all she gave up will have been for nothing