What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?
Dear 20-year-old me,
I know you’re chasing butterflies.
You call them dreams,
people,
opportunities,
love.
But they’re all butterflies.
The more desperately you run after them,
the farther they seem to fly.
So you run.
Across years.
Across heartbreaks.
Across versions of yourself.
Convinced that happiness is always
one step ahead,
one promotion away,
one relationship away,
one miracle away.
And every time something beautiful leaves,
you blame your hands for not holding on tightly enough.
What you don’t know yet
is that butterflies were never meant to be caught.
They were meant to be admired.
One day,
without announcing itself,
life will change the question.
Instead of asking,
“How do I keep beautiful things from leaving?”
You’ll start asking,
“How do I build a beautiful life, even when they do?”
And that’s when everything changes.
You’ll plant tiny seeds—
a quiet morning,
a good book,
a laugh that reaches your eyes,
people who feel like sunlight,
dreams that belong only to you.
Slowly,
almost secretly,
a garden will begin to grow.
And then one morning,
you’ll notice something strange.
The butterflies are back.
Not because you chased them.
Not because you begged them to stay.
But because beautiful things are naturally drawn
to places where they can rest.
Looking back, I realize that every experience—the beautiful ones and the painful ones—helped shape this garden. Some became flowers, some became thorns, but each of them taught me something about who I was becoming. Perhaps growing up is not about creating a perfect life. Perhaps it is about learning to find beauty, meaning, and gratitude in every season we live through.
🌿 The secret was never learning how to catch butterflies. It was learning how to grow a garden worth returning to.
With love,
Rajeshwari 🧿💕
© Nihshabd by Rajeshwari
If you’d like to linger a little longer, here are a few thoughts that grew from the same garden:
Winter, My Favorite Season… and My Biggest Enabler 🤭❄️
Healthy Boundaries in Relationships: A Guide to Lasting Love
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