Dear Me,
You were nervous. I remember that.
Hovering over “submit” like the whole internet was waiting to laugh. You weren’t sure if anyone would read it or worse, if they would and not get it. But you clicked anyway. And that one brave click changed everything.
You didn’t know yet that this would become your thing.
That Her Campus would become a home for all the thoughts you didn’t know where to put, the feelings that didn’t fit in Instagram captions, and the voice you were still learning how to use. You’d go from cautiously writing listicles to crafting full-on reflections, articles with heart, humor, and quiet strength.
You didn’t know you’d find yourself here—four years later—writing your final piece.
Not as the girl who second-guessed every sentence, but as the woman who’s grown into her words. Confident. Clear. Still soft, but no longer small.
You wrote through heartbreaks, semesters that felt like storms, and friendship fallouts that still ache if you poke them.
Remember her? The one who preached kindness but only offered it when it served her? You tried so hard to explain yourself, to make your emotions palatable, to shrink your voice for someone who couldn’t handle the full sound of it. Writing taught you that you don’t need to do that anymore. Some stories don’t need to be justified, they just need to be told. And sometimes, people won’t understand them even then. That’s okay. Write them anyway.
You used to think your writing had to be groundbreaking to be worth sharing.
Turns out, it just had to be honest. Her Campus let you write what was on your mind; messy, real, raw. From silly confessions to serious reflections, you were allowed to be a little bit of everything. And in the process, you learned that your voice doesn’t have to echo loudly to be heard, it just has to be yours.
You expanded your creativity, challenged your perspective, and found peace in paragraphs.
Each article became a time capsule. Proof of growth, snapshots of who you were at different moments in time. You shared your thoughts with the world and found that it listened, sometimes quietly, sometimes with applause, but always with space.
So to the girl who submitted her first article:
Thank you.
For trying. For believing your voice mattered enough to be typed out and published. For trusting the process. And for never stopping, even when it felt like your words were floating into a void.
Because now after four years, dozens of articles, and a heart full of memories, you get to walk away with pride. Not because you were perfect. But because you were honest. And because you kept writing, even when it was hard.
I’m so proud of you.
You were always a writer.
Now, the world knows it too.
Love,
You
The one who never stopped writing