if you see this, it worked

on writing, perfectionism, and pressing publish for that "viral" post

Sometimes writing feels like slipping a letter into a glass bottle and setting it adrift into the sea.

You spend hours crafting the words just right, sealing it with a cork tight, and to the sea you go.

Just a quiet wade into the shallows. The tide cold against your calves. You look around, see no one watching, and toss it out with a flick of the wrist and a too-loud hope in your throat.

You tell yourself it’s nothing. Just another bottle. Just another post. But still you threw a little extra hard and stood to watch a few moments too long, hoping it’ll wash up on the right shore, in the right hands, at the right time.

It’s a little embarrassing, how much I believe in the fantasy of it.

That this one piece might be the turning point. That this paragraph might be the sentence that unlocks the rest of my life. That someone with power and taste and a book deal-shaped wand might read this and whisper, yes, her.

It’s delusional, I know. But it’s also what keeps me going.

Because the truth is, trying to create anything publicly is to constantly live inside that tension—of deeply caring and pretending not to. Of wanting to be found and also fearing it. Of giving so much of yourself and getting silence back.

Perfectionism is a slow thief. It doesn’t break your windows—it just quietly locks the door from the inside.

I’ve hoarded so many unfinished drafts because they didn’t feel important enough. I’ve written and rewritten the same opening paragraph until the joy bled out of it. I’ve deleted entire pieces because they felt off. I’ve told myself: if this isn’t perfect, it isn’t worth sharing. Constantly questioning myself, judging myself as if looking through the eyes of others far more critical than reality. That if it doesn’t make people gasp or cry or repost, it was a waste. That if the right person doesn’t see it, you failed.

It’s this quiet, exhausting delusion: that we only get one shot.

I tell myself it’s about standards. Craft. Care.

But really, it’s about fear. Fear that if it isn’t perfect—if I’m not perfect—nothing will ever land right.

And that goes beyond the page.

Right now, I’m sitting in my new apartment, surrounded by boxes and half-assembled furniture. I hate it here. It’s not even that it’s bad—it’s just not perfect. And it makes me want to leave. Not because I’m unhappy here, but because it’s not that image I’ve built up in my head. I want it to be perfectly clean. I want everything to fit, every corner to be styled just right. I want to feel that pride of a finished project, not the mess of a work in progress.

and that is so incredibly ridiculous, right?But here’s the thing: it’s not just the apartment.

It’s me.

It’s the feeling that everything I’ve started—whether it’s writing or moving or even just existing—has to look finished before I can feel like I’m allowed to relax. Like I’m not allowed to be messy. Not allowed to be unfinished. Not allowed to feel like a work in progress.

And it’s so easy to blame it on being the eldest daughter.

And the thing is, I know it’s not just the apartment or the writing or being the eldest daughter.

It’s all of it.

It’s the endless scroll on social media where everyone seems to be five steps ahead—published, thriving, glowing in natural light with their NYT features and their well-lit apartments and their clean countertops and their soft morning routines.

It’s watching someone else hit “send” on a piece that goes viral while mine sits in drafts. It’s seeing someone else get the opportunity I thought maybe, just maybe, I could be next in line for.

So of course I want everything I do to be perfect.

Because what if this is the one? What if this little bottle, bobbing in the ocean of the internet, is the one that finally finds the right shore? The one that changes everything?

That kind of hope turns everything into a high-stakes gamble.

And when you live like that long enough, even joy starts to feel like work.

It’s perfectionism disguised as discipline. It’s burnout masquerading as ambition.

Because underneath it all is this bone-deep belief that if I’m not impressive, I’m invisible.

And I think a lot of us feel that, especially those of us who’ve always been the “responsible one.” The ones who got straight As, who helped raise our siblings, who were told we were “mature for our age,” who learned early on that love felt safest when it was earned through performance.

So now, even in adulthood, we carry that pressure into everything. Into our work. Our homes. Our art. Our timelines. We believe that in order to be chosen, noticed, validated—we have to be perfect.

And so we revise. We reword. We stall. We tell ourselves: not this one, not yet. We try to perfect the post that might change our lives, and in doing so, we hold ourselves back from letting anything change at all.

But statistically—if nothing else—something has to land eventually, right?

Maybe not the first post. Or the tenth. Or the hundredth.

But maybe the secret isn’t in perfectly predicting which bottle makes it. Maybe it’s just in tossing more of them. Even the ones we don’t think anyone will read. Especially those. Because what if they’re the ones that make it to shore?

What if it was never about the one big break, but about the slow and steady accumulation of imperfect tries?

Maybe that's what we, as the eldest daughters, the perfectionists, the quiet strivers, have to teach ourselves: you don't get picked because you're perfect. You get picked because you kept showing up, even when it was messy. Especially when it was messy.

I don’t know if this post will change my life. Probably not. It might just sit here like so many others, bobbing gently in the tide with my delusions.

So this is me, sending another bottle.

Because honestly? That’s how stats work.

If it finds you: hi. I hope you’re still writing. I hope you’re still sending yours too.