Please Handle Gently

 I left this letter tucked away quietly, just like the feelings inside it.

The envelope says “Handle with emotional oven mitts” which felt appropriate. It’s not a dramatic confession or a grand reveal. It’s just someone trying to hold their feelings together while still somehow offering them up.

Inside are three small pages of thoughts that wobble between wanting to be understood and being terrified of saying too much. It reads like someone standing at the edge of a feeling, unsure if it’s safe to step forward or if they should just laugh it off and back away slowly.

Somewhere between “I’m fine” and “please send snacks,” it holds that shaky kind of honesty that makes you feel a little exposed and a little human.

It ends like this:

“I would like to express that I may or may not be in love with you, or missing you.
Yours in mild peril – Leah”

I don’t know who Leah is, but I think she’s all of us, a little bit. Trying to be composed and reasonable, while quietly begging for gentleness. I hope someone finds her letter and feels a little less alone.

Because sometimes we write things down just to make sense of them.
Sometimes we leave them behind because we’re hoping someone else will understand them better than we do.

I wrote it down so I could let it go,

— Elsie Thorne