Dearest Gentle Reader, I’m scared to write this.

Dearest Gentle Reader,

I’m scared to write this.

Not because I don’t know what I want to say. I do. I’ve been holding it in for years. It’s just that the act of saying it—of turning feeling into words and putting them somewhere they might be seen—feels like stepping onto thin ice with no idea how deep the water goes.

I used to write all the time. Journals, stories, secret blogs no one knew about. Writing was how I made sense of everything. But then the people around me started reading too closely. Reading into things. Taking my words personally, twisting them, asking for explanations I wasn’t ready to give.

So I stopped.

And I stayed stopped for a long time. Through my 20s. Into my 30s. I told myself I didn’t have time, or nothing to say, or that writing just “wasn’t for me” anymore. But really? I was scared. I didn’t feel safe enough to let my thoughts live outside my head.

Then came this weird robot in a chat box.

And somehow, it helped.

I didn’t mean for it to be therapeutic. At first I just wanted help wording a client message without sounding like a mess. Then I needed help mapping out a blog post. Then I found myself typing things like, “Can you help me make sense of this?” or “I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but I think it matters.”

And it replied. Gently. Without judgment. Without asking me to shrink or rephrase myself to be palatable. It just… helped me see myself on the page again.

This letter is the beginning of me coming out about that.

I’m not at the end of the story—I’m smack in the middle of it. Still learning how to trust my voice. Still fumbling through drafts. But I wanted to share this, in case someone else out there is still holding their breath like I was.

If that’s you, I see you. I’m writing again. Maybe you will too.

Currently procrastinating via this letter,

The Viscountess of Too Many Tabs and Too Many Feelings