A Love Letter to Young Women, part 1

JESSICA MADAVO

You will be told to be grateful for crumbs that fall from tables you were meant to sit at. You will be told to smile, to be soft, to be polite, to make yourself small so others can shine. And at first, you might believe them. You might believe that safety lies in being agreeable, that love is a reward for obedience, that peace comes from avoiding conflict. I did too.

I thought the world would love me if I performed correctly, if I said the right things, loved the right way, wore the right smile. I thought that being good was the same thing as being safe. I learned how to apologize for existing too loudly, how to shrink inside compliments, how to pretend I was fine when I was falling apart. I mistook survival for peace. But peace does not come from silence. It comes from truth. And truth has a habit of making people uncomfortable.

What they never tell you is that being good won’t save you. You can do everything “right” and still be broken open. You can follow every rule and still be punished for existing in a woman’s body. The trick is not to be good. The trick is to be whole. To live so truthfully that the world can’t tell you who to be anymore.

You’ll spend years searching for the right kind of woman to be. There will be versions of you that love too loudly, versions that go quiet for too long, versions that chase, and versions that run. There will be the you who believes love will save you, and the you who learns that sometimes love destroys. There will be the you who still believes in forever, and the you who knows that even the truest love can have an ending. Every version will think it’s the final one, but each is just a chapter.

When I was your age, I thought strength meant not needing anyone. I thought independence was a fortress, not a freedom. But you will learn that strength is not about never falling apart, it’s about what you do when you do. It’s knowing how to rebuild yourself with gentleness. It’s being able to hold both the tenderness and the fight. Strength is not loud. It is not cruel. It is quiet dignity, unbending self-respect, and the refusal to betray yourself for belonging.

You will meet people who mistake possession for love. They will tell you that jealousy means care, that control means protection. They will confuse your boundaries for rejection. Don’t let anyone convince you that love must hurt to be real. Real love doesn’t demand you disappear to sustain it. Real love makes you more of yourself, not less.

You will also learn that freedom is not glamorous. It’s lonely sometimes. It’s making decisions that others don’t understand. It’s walking away from people who would rather have the version of you that doesn’t ask for anything. It’s choosing solitude over company that drains you. It’s crying in your apartment because you did the right thing and it still hurt. But it’s yours. And that makes it sacred.

There will be times you will confuse attention for affection. You will let people stay longer than they should because you think loneliness is worse than mistreatment. You will try to heal others with your softness, believing your love can rewrite their damage. But remember: empathy is not a rehabilitation center. You are not responsible for fixing what broke them. Your tenderness is a gift, not a service. Guard it.

When you fall in love, I hope it’s with someone who sees you in your entirety, who doesn’t shrink from your shadows, who delights in your contradictions. But if love ever demands you disappear to keep it, walk away. Loneliness is kinder than self-erasure. The right kind of love will expand you, not edit you.

When people call you “too much,” what they often mean is “too alive.” They are reacting to a freedom they haven’t yet given themselves permission to have. Don’t shrink for them. Don’t dull your light to soothe someone still hiding from their own. The world needs women who take up space unapologetically. You are not here to be digestible. You are here to be full.

You’ll learn that confidence isn’t loud either. It’s not the woman who walks into a room and demands attention. It’s the woman who walks in knowing she doesn’t need it. It’s paying your own bills, setting your own standards, and refusing to settle for peace that costs you your self-respect. Confidence is choosing yourself even when it’s lonely.

Money, love, friendship, they will all test you. You will learn that financial independence is not about greed; it’s about freedom. It’s knowing that you can walk away when something compromises your integrity. It’s the safety of not needing to beg for survival. No matter how romantic love gets, always have your own money. Dependence has never protected women; it has only disguised cages as comfort.

Friendships will break your heart in ways lovers never could. There will be women who call you sister and still envy you, who compete with you quietly, who love you conditionally. But you will also find women who see you fully, who root for you loudly, who remind you who you are when you forget. Cherish them. Build with them. Female friendship is resistance in a world that profits from our disconnection.

You’ll learn to recognize your mother’s voice in your own, even when you swore you wouldn’t. You’ll understand why she cried when she thought no one was watching. You’ll see the fatigue behind her strength and realize she wasn’t weak for staying, she was just never taught that leaving was an option. Every generation of women has had to unlearn survival habits that were mistaken for love. Be the one who chooses differently, not out of arrogance, but out of gratitude for the women who couldn’t.

You will also inherit silence. It will come to you in moments where you feel the urge to speak but don’t. In the way your stomach tightens before saying no. In how you laugh at jokes that aren’t funny. That silence is centuries old. It is the residue of women told that their safety depends on being agreeable. You can end that cycle. The world will not crumble if you say no. You will not lose real love by being honest. You will only lose what was never meant for you.

You will learn to mother yourself. To hold your own hand when no one else reaches for it. To make yourself dinner and not call it sad. To celebrate small victories that no one notices. To stop waiting for validation and permit yourself to exist loudly. This is not selfishness. This is survival.

There will be times you feel behind.When others seem more accomplished, more in love, more certain. But comparison is theft; it steals the joy of your own timing. Your pace is sacred. You’re not late. You’re arriving exactly when you’re meant to.

I hope you never measure your worth in likes, or followers, or the size of your ring, or the shape of your body. I hope you measure it in peace, in how you sleep at night, in how often you tell the truth, and in how gently you treat yourself after you mess up.

I hope you travel alone at least once. I hope you sit at a restaurant and order for yourself without shrinking. I hope you walk through a city where no one knows your name and feel the safety of anonymity. I hope you dance with strangers, read in silence, eat something you’ve never tasted, and realize that you belong everywhere and nowhere all at once. That kind of solitude will teach you more about yourself than a thousand conversations ever could.

And yes, you will fail. Spectacularly. You will love someone who doesn’t love you back. You will choose jobs that drain you. You will say the wrong thing, trust the wrong person, and misread the signs. But failure is not fatal; it’s information. It teaches you what you don’t want, and that’s just as valuable as knowing what you do.

You will change your mind. Often. You’ll believe one thing passionately and outgrow it months later. That’s not hypocrisy. That’s evolution. Don’t let anyone shame you for becoming. Growth will sometimes feel like betrayal to the people who benefitted from your smallness. Let them misunderstand. You’re not here to be consistent. You’re here to be true.

You will outgrow your old skin again and again. Sometimes gently, sometimes violently. You will grieve identities that once fit you perfectly. You’ll wake up one day and realize you’re no longer the girl who tolerates what she used to. That’s not coldness, it’s clarity. Every time you say no, you make space for something better.

You will cry in bathrooms. You will laugh until you snort. You will lose people who made you feel safe and meet people who make you feel seen. You will have days where you hate your reflection and nights where you marvel at your strength. You will fluctuate between feeling unstoppable and utterly lost, and that’s okay. Being human was never supposed to be tidy.

You will keep learning that joy and sorrow are not opposites. They live together. The same hands that cradle love also bury it. The same mouth that laughs will one day tremble with grief. Don’t run from that. Let it make you wide enough to hold both.

When you find yourself loving someone, remember: you deserve to be chosen in the daylight, not hidden in the dark. You deserve consistency, not confusion. You deserve reciprocity, not performance. Don’t chase people who only want your light but never stand beside you when it dims.