Everything I Never Told You

Prologue: The Surface of the Lake

Dear Reader, you might not know me yet, but I am Lydia Lee, and my story is etched deep beneath the still waters of a lake—a lake that mirrors life's calm and storms, its clarity and murkiness. This lake, you will come to understand, is more than a body of water; it's a reflection of the world I once moved through, sometimes gliding, often struggling, but always with a sense of being watched by eyes I couldn't see.

My life, like yours, has been a quest for understanding, for air to fill my lungs when the pressure of expectations weighed me down like lead. I invite you to walk with me through these pages, through the labyrinth of my thoughts and memories.

Let us unravel the moments that defined me, so you might see the threads that bind us. I will share with you the tapestry of my existence, the bright colors and the faded, the knots and the frayed edges.

We are all woven from similar fibers, you and I, and our patterns overlap more than you might think. As we embark on this journey, be patient with me, and perhaps with yourself.

We are about to dive beneath the surface, and the water is both colder and warmer than you expect. But I promise, if you stay with me until the shore reappears, you will emerge drenched not only in my story but also in the understanding of your own depths.

Whispers in the Halls

My story begins with whispers—whispers that danced around me like shadows, shaping the person I was expected to be. My parents, Marilyn and James, had their own visions for me, visions that sprouted from the seeds of their unfulfilled dreams.

You, too, might recognize the weight of unspoken demands, the way they can shape your posture, your path, the very beat of your heart. My brother Nath and my sister Hannah, both present and absent in their own ways, moved like ghosts through our family narrative, leaving their silent marks upon me.

The expectations hung heavily in the air of our small Ohio town in the 1970s, a place where difference was noted and often not celebrated. I felt the gaze of my classmates, their parents, my teachers—each one a chisel carving their desires into my skin.

Perhaps you have felt it too, that relentless pressure to mold yourself into a shape that pleases others, to become a reflection of their ideals rather than your own. In this echo chamber of hopes and demands, my own voice became a distant sound, muffled and unclear.

The story I was writing with my own hand began to feel like a script handed to me by someone else. I know now that you may have been handed a script too, one that you follow without question, without realizing that the pen has always been in your hand, and the page is yours to fill.

The Weight of Water

The evening of my disappearance, the lake was as still as glass—deceivingly serene. Beneath the surface, currents were at work, pulling and pushing with the whims of the wind.

In life, I had often felt like I was treading water, keeping my head just above the surface while my legs fought furiously against the pull of the deep. You might understand this perpetual motion, the constant effort to stay afloat amidst the expectations, the fears, the daily struggles that threaten to drag you under.

My family's lives were intertwined with mine, yet in many ways, we were strangers, swimming parallel to one another but rarely meeting. My mother's academic ambitions for me, my father's desire for me to fit in, they were the currents I battled, even as I longed for their approval, their love, their understanding.

In your own life, you may find similar currents—forces that shape your journey, that buffet you this way and that, leaving you gasping for air, for space, for self. That night, as I slipped beneath the surface, the water filled my ears, and the world went silent.

In that silence, I imagined what it might be to simply let go, to surrender to the depths, to the darkness. But even in the quiet, I could sense the ripples my disappearance would send across the water's surface, reaching far shores, touching lives I had barely grazed.

Our actions, like stones skipped upon the lake, touch more lives than we can fathom, setting off waves that lap at distant edges long after we are gone.

Reflections in the Mirror

In the days that followed, my family peered into the mirror of my absence, searching for clues, for understanding. They saw fragments of me, but also, for the first time, they saw reflections of themselves.

My mother, whose own dreams had been redirected, saw her ambitions etched into my skin. My father, wrestling with his identity in a world that often viewed him as an outsider, recognized his yearning for belonging mirrored in my eyes.

You, too, may find in the absence of another a clearer view of yourself. What is it about absence that sharpens our vision, that clears the fog from the glass? Is it the starkness of loss, the sudden void where once there was presence? Or perhaps it is the freedom of release, the absence of expectation that allows us to finally see the truth of who we are, who we were, who we might yet become.

In the stillness of the house, without my footsteps to echo against the walls, my family began to confront their own reflections, unflinching and raw. As you move through your days, surrounded by the noise of living, consider the mirrors you pass, the reflections you choose to see or to ignore.

What truths might you find in the quiet corners of your world, in the spaces where the dust has settled and the light is just right? Our reflections are not just in glass but in the people we touch, the lives we weave in and out of, the stories that echo long after we're gone.

The Language of Silence

Silence is a language all its own, a language my family spoke fluently, though often without understanding. We moved around each other, our silences heavy with the words we never dared to speak.

The air in our home was thick with things unsaid, with the tension of unasked questions and unoffered explanations. You, too, might know this silence, the way it can fill a room, a heart, until there is no space left for breathing, for speaking, for connecting.

But silence, I learned, can also be a canvas, a vast, open space where understanding can bloom in the absence of sound. In the quiet left by my departure, my family began to explore this canvas, tentatively at first, then with growing urgency.

They traced the outlines of our shared history, the silent sacrifices, the muted joys. Through the language of silence, they began to speak, to reach for one another across the chasm of their grief.

Consider the silences in your own life, the pauses between words, the breaths between actions. What might these spaces hold for you? What whispers might you hear if you only listen to the silence, if you allow it to speak its piece? Sometimes, in the absence of noise, we find the most profound connections, the deepest understanding, the truths that words can never quite capture.

The Geometry of Grief

Grief is a shape-shifter, a geometric puzzle that rearranges itself with each passing moment. For my family, it took the form of a void, an empty chair at the dinner table, a silent phone, a bedroom door forever closed.

They reached for me in the sharp angles of my absence, each in their own way, each with their own brand of sorrow. You too might recognize the contours of loss, the way it can distort the familiar, reshape the boundaries of your world.

But grief, for all its pain, can also be a teacher, a sculptor chiseling away at our illusions until only the core of our truth remains. In their searching, my family discovered not just the shape of their grief, but also the form of their love, the dimensions of their resilience.

They found that even in the most acute angles of loss, there is a curve of continuity, a line that connects us beyond the realm of sight and touch. As you navigate your own geometries of grief, consider the lessons it offers, the ways in which it reshapes your understanding of the world.

Look for the love that endures within the sharpness, the growth that emerges from the fractures. Grief carves us into new forms, and within those forms, we find the capacity for renewal, for rebirth, for beginnings that rise from the ashes of our endings.

The Colors of Memory

Memories, I have found, are not monochrome but painted in a spectrum of colors, each hue tinged with the light of emotion, the shade of perspective. As my family delved into the album of our shared past, they began to see the colors of our memories shift, change, blend into new patterns.

The bright yellows of laughter, the deep blues of sadness, the fiery reds of anger—all swirled together to form the portrait of a life, my life, intertwined with theirs. In your own recollections, you might see similar colors, the vibrancy of joy, the darkness of regret, the neutral tones of the everyday.

Our memories are a canvas upon which we paint and repaint the scenes of our lives, often without realizing the artistry of our own strokes, the way we highlight some moments and cast others into shadow. Consider the palette of your own memories, the choices you make each time you dip your brush into the past.

What colors dominate your landscape? What scenes do you choose to repaint, to revise, to hang upon the walls of your mind? Our memories, like art, are alive, ever-changing, and within them, we find not only the past but the seeds of our future selves, waiting to burst into color.

Epilogue: The Echoes We Leave

And so, dear Reader, we reach the end of my tale, a story that is both uniquely mine and universal in its echoes. Through these words, I have hoped to reach across the divide of experience, to touch the common threads that bind us in our shared humanity.

I have shared my story not to preach or to teach, but to offer a mirror, a reflection in which you might see your own struggles, your own triumphs, and the enduring strength that lies within us all.In the delicate events that unfolded in my life, I found a wisdom born of suffering, a knowledge carved from the raw material of loss and love.

It is a wisdom that lives within you too, in the marrow of your bones, in the breath of your spirit. As you walk the path of your own life, know that endurance is not merely the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory, to weave the threads of your experiences into a tapestry of meaning and purpose.

My voice, once submerged beneath the waters of silence and expectation, has found its way to the surface in these pages. I invite you to listen, to hear the resonance of your own voice within my story, and to carry that melody forward into the symphony of your life.

May you emerge from these words with a heart open to the lessons that whisper in the wind, to the love that lingers in the quiet spaces, to the wisdom that waits in the depths of your own being.And if my story has moved you, has made you pause and wonder, then I encourage you to seek out the original masterpiece from which my voice was born: "Everything I Never Told You" by Celeste Ng.

Within its pages, you will find a deeper exploration of the themes that have touched your heart, a richer tapestry of the human experience, and a story that resonates with the silent songs of every soul. It is a journey worth taking, a book that offers not only a window into another world but a mirror reflecting the very essence of our own.