A Thank You Letter to Myself….!

Dear Mrigakhi,

You have always carried within you a spark, a fire that never went unnoticed, even when it felt like the world was waiting for you to shrink. Today, I see that fire burn brighter than ever.

Thank you for confronting every challenge, for standing in spaces where you were told you might not belong and for showing the world that nothing could hold you back. You never needed anyone’s approval. You simply needed to trust in yourself and you did.

Thank you for showing up, every single day, not just as a woman, but as a force to be reckoned with. The world might have expected you to follow, to fit in, but you chose to lead, to break barriers and to redefine what strength means.

Thank you for making that first step into a job where others doubted you, for showing them and more importantly, yourself that you were not just capable, you were exceptional. You proved that a woman’s place is wherever she chooses to stand and you’ve built your place with grace and unwavering strength.

Thank you for never shrinking, for holding your own in every room you entered and for becoming the woman I always knew you were meant to be. I look at you now, and I am proud!!Proud of your resilience, your courage and your unapologetic authenticity.

To my parents:

I owe you my deepest gratitude. Thank you maa deuta,for never making me feel that I needed to be like a boy to be valued. You never saw me as anything less because of my gender. Instead, you taught me that being a girl was something to be celebrated. You gave me the confidence to believe that I could be anything, that being a woman was not a limitation but a gift; something to be proud of, something to be respected!!

And now, I stand strong, not because of the world’s validation, but because of the foundation you’ve built for me.

Happy International Women’s Day to all the incredible women across the world. Let us celebrate every day, for we are born from women and we are born as women. The strength that a woman endures to bring life into this world is unmatched and the woman born from her is the embodiment of that strength, an unyielding force of nature.

With all my heart,
Your Younger Self