Joan Didion.

She was the woman who made observation into art. She walked into a room and turned detachment into its own form of intimacy.

Joan Didion taught me that emotion doesn't have to be declared loudly to be felt deeply. That noticing is an act of love. That writing is a way of claiming space - not with volume, but with precision.

Her sentences feel like brushed steel: cool, exacting, unflinching. But beneath every polished clause is a woman who felt everything. And had the audacity to stay looking.

She didn’t soften her edges to make others more comfortable. She told the truth with a surgeon’s grace - and in doing so, made space for others to tell it messily, urgently, with whatever instruments they had.

Joan made me feel that it was okay to be both analytical and sensitive. That mourning and meaning-making could live in the same paragraph. That even if the center doesn't hold, you can.

She taught me how to hold contradictions and call it clarity. She let grief walk through the front door and sit at the table. She showed me what it means to survive with elegance and without apology.

Joan Didion is not on my wall because she was flawless. She’s on my wall because she was ferociously precise about being real.

And I think that’s the bravest thing a woman can be.