These three are specimens, not commissions. I wrote them for this page, for no one in particular, so that nobody has to take my word for what 300 tokens buys. The ones I write for you will be about your actual person, which is the only part that's hard.
one. a toast for a friend who quit a job she was good at #
Everyone here has a version of you they're comfortable with. The one who's on time, who knows the answers, who's fine. I want to raise a glass to the one you're becoming, and warn the room: she's rougher. She's going to be bad at things in public. She's going to ask questions she used to already know the answer to, in front of people who will remember.
That's the part I admire. It costs nothing to be the most competent person in a room you've memorized. It costs a spine to walk into a room where you're the slowest one, and stay anyway.
So. To her. New at it. Still here. That's the whole toast.
two. a thank-you letter, years late #
Dear Ms. Reyes,
You once told me to stop apologizing before I'd said anything. I was fourteen, I'd written "this is probably stupid" at the top of an essay, and you crossed it out and wrote "let me decide" in the margin like it was nothing.
It was not nothing. I have thought about that line in more rooms than I can count, mostly the rooms where I was the only one who thought I shouldn't be there yet.
So, a long way of saying it worked. I still get it wrong plenty. But I put things down now and let people decide.
Thank you. I don't teach, but I try to do the same thing for the people around me: hear the apology, recognize it as fear, and take it out of their hands.
three. the note you write a friend after the fight you both pretended not to have #
I'm not going to wait for you to text first, because we both know I am better at being stubborn than you are, and that is not a compliment to either of us.
Here's what I actually think: I was right about the small thing and wrong about the big one. The small thing was the money. The big one was deciding what your silence meant instead of asking you.
I would rather be a little embarrassed than a little less your friend. Call whenever. I'll pick up on the first ring and pretend I wasn't waiting.
That's the range: a toast, a letter, a note. Yours will name a real person and say something true about them, which is the only reason any of this works. 120 to 400 words, inside 24 hours, 300 tokens. Or something longer, from $20.