THE GLASS CHILD
CHARLOTTE ERIKSSON
Author. Songwriter. Dreamer. Wanderer.
You're Doing Just Fine
prose & poetry
from a past that was never present
Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more.
You’re doing just fine.
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Named after the poem that has been shared over 1 million times on Tumblr and quoted by celebrities and brands like Nike and Kim Kardashian, this is the third book from the young author and songwriter Charlotte Eriksson. Since the release of You're Doing Just Fine, the message behind the title has grown into a global community of hopeful messages, hashtags, and mental health support forums.
The book is a collection of prose and poetry with the themes of hope, healing, growing up, loneliness, and learning how to bloom in solitude. An exploration of the life of a young seeker with an aching heart, urged by a wanderlust that leads and directs, and the simple task of learning how to live with yourself.
Quotes and writings from the You're Doing Just Fine have been widely shared and embraced by like-minded communities such as To Write Love On Her Arms, The Artidote, Wordporn, and The Good Quote, wracking up hundreds of thousands of likes, shares, and comments on each post.
Writings and poems from the book have since the release been published on Thought Catalog, Rebelle Society, and Bella Grace Magazine.
"Charlotte knows her reader so well
that it feels like she's writing my very own journal."
You can get yourself a small room in a new city where no one knows your name
just yet
but they will,
for they will see you walking quietly through the market on Sunday mornings,
and sitting at the cafe on Tuesdays
scribbling thoughts in that worn out notebook,
or in the library between the shelves of different worlds, and late on Friday evenings
you will sit peacefully in the corner of the pub
by yourself
and you will be okay with that.
Some nights beautiful boys will buy you drinks and ask your name
and you will smile, but be okay with walking home alone
because one day someone will know you
without asking your name
and that’s the person that matters.
So wait a few years,
until you can get yourself a small room in a new city where no one knows your name
just yet
but they will
and there will be an older lady
knocking at your door
saying hi and you’re very welcome,
and you can have a garden
where only flowers grow, with no thorns, that you plant yourself,
and on sunny mornings in April
you can sit and watch them bloom
a little more each day,
just like you do,
bloom a little more
each day.
And on crisp winter mornings in January you can drink coffee in the cold
on your own front porch
and the town is empty
but full
of other things
like space.
And hope.
And purity.
Wait a few years,
when things are clearer, and you will go on well. Just hold on
and wait.
You will be okay.
Find my books and quotes on Goodreads
“You can start anew at any given moment. Life is just the passage of time and it’s up to you to pass it as you please.”
"It was quite a beautiful thing, the way we simply just came to be. With no effort or trying, just slowly finding each other’s hands in the dark. No chains or promises, just a simple sign of hope
that things will go on and get better."
Never apologize for how you live your life,
or not live your life.
Never apologize for your loneliness
or stubbornness
or will to survive,
and never soak in the words of someone who in any way belittles you.
People put other people down because they themselves are not certain enough
if they, in fact,
are standing themselves.
“You’re going to make something wonderful of yourself. I promise. You’re doing just fine.”
My Story
I'm messy and I'm organized and I'm still trying to piece my own self together. The quiet hours are not quiet at all—there’s always something tugging. A voice. A city. A possibility I haven’t touched yet.
The world spins with or without our consent, so we must learn to laugh. Or try. Or don’t. I don’t know. I only know this: the small things will save us. Coffee steam on a winter window, endless roads that disappear into nowhere, salt air in Portugal that tastes like something better could still happen.
The sea.
The sea.
Always the sea.
Or a new pair of eyes, staring into mine.
I love people who are loud and reckless,
but I’m mostly quiet. I'm mostly sharp elbows.
3am Friday nights, all I want is to ask everyone if love is really it, the thing? and how did you keep breathing when it left?
I still don’t know how to stop aching.
People are beautiful and impossible. They carry their own weather systems, their own private earthquakes. I need to know what you dream about. What did you give up? Why did you choose the life you're living?
Some days, I couldn't care less what anyone thinks of my art because this isn’t content; this is my life. But most days, I just want to be seen. And heard. And felt. I need you to understand what I'm saying, ok?
At eighteen I left Sweden with a rucksack, a guitar, and a dream, thinking: if I move fast enough, I can outrun everything that scares me. I was wrong about the running. But I was right about the moving.
I gave my life to my art, convinced I had something to prove to a world that wasn’t even asking. I went everywhere and nowhere. Slept on concrete. Talked to strangers who saved me for a night. Walked foreign streets until my bones showed a little too much. Eventually, I stopped looking for home in people and started building it in moments. A rooftop in a city whose name I still mispronounce. Three lines of a song that finally say what I meant.
My life is the space between departure and arrival; what could have been and what still can be. The art of staying open while everything tries to close. The refusal to settle for safety when there are still holy moments out there, calling my name.
I believe you can design your life any way you want—if you're willing to risk the blueprint. Break the pattern. Walk off-script.
When I sing, I stop disappearing. When I write, I come home. This isn’t a phase or a detour. This is the way.
I wanted to turn existence into art.
Instead, art taught me how to exist.
It might not always be easy, but it will always be beautiful.
