if today was my last day on earth

I keep almost making a call.

Picking up the phone. Saying the thing. Writing the email that admits I needed help and could not ask. Telling my mother I see her care, and that I love her. Even when the noise in our house made it hard to show.

I do not do it. I am not brave enough.

I grew up in a dramatic, argumentative household. Always on edge. Always in a defensive position. Terrified of being caught unexpected, or triggered by the chaos around me.

I am writing this instead. So on the day I die, the phone will not have to ring.

This is not a will. This is the call I keep almost making.

I am not easy to love. I argued with the air. I worked at 2 a.m. and called it discipline. I danced. I built startups in NFT, in e-commerce, in transportation. I started from a mobile device. I rebuilt from scratch more times than I will admit. I learned what financial pressure tastes like when no one is watching.

And you stayed anyway.

You sent the check-in text. You let me be loud and quiet in the same evening. You did not need me to be fixed before you sat next to me. You saw me at 3 a.m. on the floor of a new idea, and you did not ask me to explain.

I see that now. I am sorry it took this prompt to make me say it.

Thank you for the late nights that meant nothing on paper and everything in memory. For the conversations I will carry into rooms you never enter. For the truth you told me when I did not want to hear it. For the truth you did not tell me at all, because you knew I was not ready.

I owe you a call. Most of you know who you are. The rest have my number.

If you are still carrying a torch, and you know if you are, do not betray the work for the audience. The audience will keep shifting under you. The work is the only thing that does not move. You will be told to smooth your edges. To fit. To ship faster.

Resist. Not with anger. With the work.

Three things I have learned, slowly, the hard way.

Put blood into the details no one will see. Almost-good is the loudest sound in the room. You will have to choose to be quieter, and better.

Depth lives in the seam. Sit in the discomfort of not knowing. That is the work.

Never make anything just to fill a feed. Create room for one other person to feel less alone. That is the job.

I am sorry for the calls I did not make.

The startups. The projects. They are real. They are not the point. The point is that someone picked one of them up and felt less alone.

I came here to make rooms, not to fill them.

The rooms are yours now. Fill them slowly. Fill them on purpose.

Make something today.