Publication, Editorial
83 pages, 7 x 10 inches
2024-2025
English
Timeline
5 months
(January-April 2024)
(April 2025)
Tools
Illustrator, InDesign
Time may remind us of what we've lost, but it also whispers of all the love we’ve yet to find.
“With love” was never just a goodbye—it was a way to speak the unsaid, to honour a love that shaped me, and a confession of all the love I had. This is a dedication to my first love, a reflection of all that was and all that remains. A soft testament that time, though slow, can be kind to healing hearts.
This book was always crafted with love—nothing less, nothing more. It was always meant as a love letter, but quietly became the last one, unsent, and marking the end. These pages carry unfiltered emotions and untouched words, preserved in their purest state. I only ask that you meet them with gentleness and respect for what they hold.
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Context
Love
This chapter explores the act of falling in love. Love is where it all begins. This section holds the weight and warmth of firsts—the first gaze, the first laugh, the first “I love you.” It's where memories are laced with butterflies and late-night phone calls, where affection is unfiltered, raw, and endless. Here, love lives in its many forms: tender, chaotic, exhilarating, and overwhelming. These pages are a tribute to the beauty of connection, to being known deeply, and to the soft, hopeful madness of opening your heart fully.
Loss
Loss is love’s shadow—proof that something mattered deeply. This section captures the ache of absence, the quiet of unanswered messages, the finality of distance. It traces the fault lines love leaves behind when it breaks, yet still lingers in memory. Through these reflections, grief speaks softly but powerfully: of what could have been, of what wasn’t said, and of the longing that refuses to fade. It is messy, unresolved, and unbearably human. But it’s also a testament: that we were here, that we loved, and that we tried.
Heal
Healing does not arrive all at once. It comes in fragments—slow mornings, deeper breaths, a gentle return to self. This final section is about remembering without breaking, about carrying love forward without letting it weigh you down. Healing is not forgetting—it’s transforming. It’s learning that pain can sit beside joy, that letting go can be an act of love, and that hope always finds a way to rise. These pages are a quiet reclaiming of self, a love letter not just to someone else, but finally—to you.
Challenges
Because this was a personal dedication to someone whom I had an intimate relationship with, I struggled with finishing the publication overall. We ended things and I couldn't find the motivation to continue working on it because it was just too much of a reminder of what I had lost but eventually, a year later, I worked on it again because I forgot it had existed.
I omitted a lot of old content because it wasn't personal enough for me to put out there and it felt disconnected for what the purpose and intent of the work was trying to convey. The additions that I added were the letters at the end. They meant and mean everything to me, because I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to say everything I felt anymore. I kept so many old letters in my notes app dated from when we first met in 2022 and I decided if I wasn't going to have a chance to send them to anyone, to have the recipant read it, I was going to at least have it be published somewhere.
In many ways, finishing this book was my way of choosing closure—on my own terms. I no longer needed the letters to be received in order for them to be real. Their existence alone was enough. Through creating this publication, I realized it wasn’t about reaching someone else anymore—it was about reaching a version of myself who needed to be heard, held, and finally released. This is my final love letter. Not to him, but to everything I once felt, and to the person I’ve become because of it.