A love letter to the girl who carried me here.
Before I was Bohlale, I was Lerato.
Lerato wasn’t just a name — she was a world. A world I created to survive. A straight-A student with notebooks full of stories and a heart full of questions. She lived in books more than in the real world, often scribbling dreams into the margins of her schoolwork and imagining a life far from the instability that had shaped her childhood.
She moved around a lot. Homes changed. Schools changed. But inside, she clung to consistency in the form of imagination. In books, she found places where girls like her were seen, were safe, and were loved. Books didn’t move away. They didn’t forget you. They lived inside you, and you could live inside them. That was her sanctuary.
She was brilliant. Capable. Curious. And deeply, deeply lonely.
She smiled through what she couldn’t express, quietly managing the memories that haunted her and the pain she never had the language to name. I think she wanted to be everything — a scientist, a doctor, even a geologist at one point. She truly believed she could become anything she set her mind to, and that belief held her together when everything else was shifting.
But even the brightest spirits can break under the weight they were never meant to carry. And by the time she was 15, Lerato had tried to end her life.
No one really saw it — the exhaustion, the sadness, the silent scream beneath the good grades and polite smiles. She didn’t cry often, but when she did, it was in silence. She didn’t trust the world with her tears.
The Moment I Felt Her Fade
Years later, when I held my daughter for the first time, something shifted in me. I looked into her eyes and realised I wasn’t that girl anymore — the one who believed she had to do everything alone, the one who was constantly trying to earn love by being exceptional.
Becoming a mother brought up everything I hadn’t yet healed. I was terrified. I questioned whether I was capable of raising another human when I hadn’t lived with my own mother, when I had raised myself in so many ways.
Around the same time, I ended my engagement. From the outside, it looked like a good life — secure, promising. But deep down, something in me kept running, and I started to ask myself: Am I leaving because it’s wrong… or because stability feels unfamiliar?
It was then that I began to feel Lerato slipping away.
What I Grieved Most
I didn’t lose her all at once. She drifted from me in small, quiet moments.
I missed how effortlessly she seemed to move through life. I missed her confidence, her boldness, her childlike certainty that anything was possible. I missed how she believed in herself, fully, unapologetically.
And I mourned the loss of her trophies, certificates, and all the symbols of who she had once been. When we moved for the last time and I realised those physical reminders were gone, I felt untethered — like her brilliance had disappeared with them.
What I grieved most was her strength. Her innocence. And her unwavering ability to believe she was destined for more, even when no one told her so.
How I Learned to Sit with the Grief
The grief wasn’t loud. It didn’t explode. It whispered.
It showed up in the quiet moments when I couldn’t recognise myself. When my words trembled. When I looked in the mirror, and didn’t see the girl who used to know all the answers.
I didn’t know how to talk about it at first. I just started writing. Journaling. Praying. Asking questions that no one in my family could really answer — questions about my childhood, my name, my worth.
I sought therapy. I began the slow, sacred work of healing. And I spoke to her — to Lerato. Some days I still do.
Becoming Bohlale
Now, I’m learning to live as Bohlale.
And let me tell you — she is softer, quieter, but no less strong. She doesn’t have all the answers, but she listens to her spirit. She is learning to trust stillness as much as she once trusted movement.
I still struggle sometimes. I still miss Lerato’s clarity and fire. But I’ve come to see that she never truly left me. She simply grew. She laid the foundation for the woman I am now becoming.
Bohlale is learning what it means to nurture herself. To set boundaries. To rest. To speak up. To love herself without conditions.
Wholeness, for me, looks like peace. It looks like softness.
A Whisper to the Girl I Was
Thank you, Lerato.
Thank you for surviving. For dreaming. For carrying me through the darkest parts of my story. You were never unlovable. You were always enough — dark skin, quiet voice, book-filled heart and all.
You are not gone. You are just… transformed.
May you rise with me, not as a ghost, but as a guide. May you find your place in this woman I’m still learning to be.
To You, Dear Reader…
If you too are grieving a former self, know that you are not alone.
We all carry younger versions of ourselves within us — not to erase or reject, but to honor.
May you grieve with grace. May you grow with gentleness.
And may you always remember: you didn’t lose her.
You became her evolution.
With love,
Bohlale
