After the Presentation Tea, nothing much changed. The girls were still the girls. Princess School was still Princess School. The dog outside the coffee shop was still waiting by the bike rack every morning. But now, Isabella stopped to say hello. "Hi, Biscuit," she'd whisper. His tail wagged every time. She'd save him something from her lunch. It became their little secret.

But one evening, after dinner and homework, another ritual began. Isabella climbed into bed, reached into the drawer beside it, and pulled out a notebook her mother had given her months before.

The pages were still empty. She picked up her pencil and stared at the first page for a long time. Then she started writing.

Dear Katherine,

She stopped. Who was Katherine? She wasn't sure. She only knew the name felt familiar, like a song she'd forgotten she knew. So she kept writing.

Today everyone was talking about the Winter Dance. I pretended I didn't want to go.

But I do.

She read the words back to herself. Then, at the bottom of the page, she left three blank lines. Just in case.

The next night she wrote again.

Dear Katherine,

Do you ever feel lonely when you're surrounded by people?

Three blank lines.

And the night after that...

Dear Katherine,

Today at lunch someone said something and the whole table laughed. I laughed too. I still don't know what was funny.

Three blank lines.

Night after night, Katherine became the sister Isabella had always wished for. Isabella decided they looked alike. The same eyes. Same smile. The same birthday. The same laugh. But Katherine moved through the world differently. She asked questions when she didn't understand something. She wore whatever she liked. She wasn't afraid of looking silly. She never wondered whether she belonged before walking into a room.

Soon, Katherine knew everything. The things Isabella couldn't tell the girls at school. The things she couldn't tell her parents because she loved them too much to make them worry. The things she barely knew how to tell herself.

Every letter ended the same way. Three empty lines, in hopes there would be room for Katherine to answer.

Katherine never answered.

Still, every morning before school, Isabella checked the three empty lines. Just in case.

Weeks passed. The letters grew longer. The space for the three blank lines grew smaller. But not because Isabella had stopped hoping. She just had more to say.

Dear Katherine,

I can't wait to meet you.

~

Community is one of the tools in the Love Map.

When I was little, I wrote in a journal almost every night. I wasn't writing to an imaginary friend. I was writing to an older version of myself. The one who had already lived the life I was dreaming of. I wanted to know who we married. I wanted to know the names of my kids. I wanted to make sure I remembered to have four... four kids, don't forget!

Looking back, I think I was creating a place where I could be seen. Where my feelings had a place to exist, without the need to be different. And who better to understand me... than older me.

Isabella called her place Katherine. Maybe yours was a journal. Maybe it was prayer. Maybe it was music. Maybe it was a book.

Before we find someone safe enough to tell the truth to... we often need somewhere safe enough to place it.

Who, or what, was your Katherine?

Until next Friday,
Jenn