She showed me her phone’s draft folder over coffee last week. Not the usual kind filled with half-finished work emails or shopping lists, but a different sort – a digital sanctuary of truths too raw to send.

Got me thinking about all the messages we save but never share. 

The ones that live in that liminal space between thought and action, witnessing our quiet becoming.

What lives in your draft folder?

Note: This is for the ones who write perfect responses… and then save them instead of sending them. You know who you are. 😉

She keeps a folder of unsent messages on her phone.

Not the angry ones—she learned to let those dissolve like smoke signals after her thirty-seventh birthday. 

These are the honest ones. The messages that rise to the surface like cream—too pure to dilute with send buttons and read receipts.

“It’s like keeping a diary,” she told me over coffee, her finger hovering over that silver apple on the back of her phone. “Except instead of writing ‘Dear Diary,’ I write messages to people I’ll never be honest with.” She laughed softly, but I caught the tremor in her voice—the one that comes when we’re touching something real.

I understand this digital confessional. We all do, don’t we? 

The courage that fills our fingertips when we’re safely separated by screens. The way we craft the perfect snarky response, polished like a river stone while letting real-life conversations dissolve into half-truths and nods.

image by the author

There’s something about a hand-held screen that makes truth feel safer. 

We can hold it at arm’s length, examine it under perfect lighting, and adjust the angles until we’re ready to face it. Or not.

I’m intrigued by the messages we save. 

Not the sharp-edged ones born of anger or hurt — the tender ones.

The drafts we dictate when driving alone, washing dishes, or hiding in the washroom stall —in moments when truth sneaks past our carefully constructed defenses.

I found my collection the other day in a folder labeled “F*ck this Shit.” Letters to my younger self, messages to former lovers, and words that could cut flesh. It was like a time capsule.

A friend once showed me a message she’d written to her ex-husband. It was three simple lines. “I never sent it,” she said, “because packing my bags was a complete sentence.”

Maybe the one-sided conversations in our drafts aren’t failed attempts at communication. What if they’re our soul witnessing truth? Whispers of underdeveloped thoughts screaming to be acknowledged.

When you read them back, the growth is obvious.

The early ones tend to ramble, don’t they? They justify and explain as if we’re still trying to convince ourselves we have the right to feel what we feel.

But then they get shorter. Clear. Less apologetic.

“This isn’t working.”
“Not doing that.”
“No.”

That’s the beautiful thing about truth—it doesn’t need elaborate packaging once you trust it.

The drafts are reminders. Look how far we’ve come. 

From explaining to truth-telling.
From seeking permission to claiming space.

Maybe that’s why we save them —to mark the path home to ourselves.

xo,

P.S. What truths are living in your draft folder? The ones you’re not ready to send but need to be spoken, even if just to yourself? They’re doing important work. Being witnessed, even if only by you, is its own kind of power. 

But if you’d like an ear… leave me a private message ⬇️

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