Letters from the Girl I Buried

Chapter Three: I Want Structure, But I Was Built From Storms

Chapter Three: I Want Structure, But I Was Built From Storms

"I crave control because everything around me keeps falling apart. And sometimes I think if I plan hard enough, maybe life won't break me again."

"I am both the blueprint and the demolition. I want peace, but I was raised in the wreckage."

Some people wake up and know what the day will look like. They have their routines: brush teeth, journal, stretch, tea. Their worlds move in clean, straight lines. Predictable. Safe.

That has at some point been my life. But not anymore at least not completely.

I was raised in the kind of chaos that forces you to grow up before you're ready. The kind that teaches you not to ask too many questions. The kind where people say "I love you" after they've already done the damage.

And maybe that's why I started chasing routine so hard. Maybe that's why I map out my hours and color-code my digital planner. Because if I can just control the day, maybe I can control the memories. Maybe I can silence the echoes that keep me awake at 2AM—the what-ifs, the what-the-hells, the why-did-they-leaves.

I build structure not because I'm organized, but because it's the only way I don't fall apart.

There is a kind of exhaustion that doesn't come from lack of sleep. It comes from always bracing yourself. Waiting for the text to not come. The mood to shift. The room to explode.

I live with that exhaustion like it's a second skin.

People say, "You're so put together." But they don't see the pages of ripped-up plans, the lists rewritten, the late nights sitting in the bathroom trying to breathe because control slipped through my fingers again.

I try so hard to be unbreakable. But some mornings, I wake up and I'm already in pieces.

I want peace. Desperately. But peace requires surrender, and surrender feels like giving up control. And giving up control? That feels like dying. Because every time I let go, someone else decides how I suffer.

So I plan. So I grind. So I smile and say, "I'm fine."

Because maybe if I say it enough, it becomes true.

Sometimes I think about the girl I would be if life had been softer to me. If I had the luxury of being gentle. Of trusting time instead of racing it.

But I wasn't raised soft. I was forged. Hammered. Tempered in heat. And that version of me? She doesn't get to rest. She's always on.

I want to rest. But I don't know how.

And yet I keep reaching for both. For stillness and survival. For peace and protection. For breath and battle.

Maybe that's what makes me dangerous. Maybe that's what makes me worthy.

I write out goals like they're sacred. I treat to-do lists like they're lifelines. I talk to my future self in letters and promises.

"You're gonna make it."

"You'll build something real."

"You'll be someone no one can ever break again."

Because when the past comes knocking with the same tired pain, I want the future to be a door it can't walk through.

So I plan. So I schedule. So I build my life like a fortress.

But even fortresses need to be lived in. Even walls need windows.

And I think I'm finally ready to let light in.

Somewhere along the line, I confused perfection with safety. If I do it all right, maybe no one will leave. Maybe no one will get mad. Maybe the floor won't drop. Maybe they'll listen instead of puttig up walls defending them selves from something it was ment to be.

But no matter how perfect I try to be, people still fail me.

so for a while i stopped i fell off and that's okay cause falling just means you can get up bigger, badder, and stronger.

They leave anyway. They forget anyway. They break what I built anyway.

So I'm learning to plan without punishing myself. I'm learning that rest is not weakness. That softness is not a flaw.

That maybe the strongest thing I can do is say: I don't have it all figured out.

And that's okay. Something that i just started to relise was actually a good thing

Because I'm still here. Still building. Still becoming.

And that's enough. a reminder to every girl or guy out their.

[End of Chapter Three]