to all the girls i've been before

a twenty-year journey back to Self

Dear fifteen,

You think there is nothing better than being chosen. Wanted. You think there is no greater feeling than being picked by a boy, as if you’re waiting to be selected for a kickball team.

And when someone shows you even the slightest bit of attention, you are so ready to cast aside every ounce of what makes you special: your humor (off-beat), your intelligence (boys don’t like smart girls, remember?), and your big, big heart. You try to mold yourself into the nonchalant yet subservient girl who makes others feel at ease.

You blunt your empathy with anything you can get your hands on, anything to turn you from the girl who feels too much to the girl who doesn’t care.

But darling, what if you had stayed caring?

What if you applied your natural intensity to care for good? What if you found ways to nurture self-worth and intelligence while helping others? Where would you be now? What could you have accomplished?

I say this not to shame you, but to wrap my sturdy arms around you and remind you that you had all the magic you needed before any boy gave you a second glance.

Someday you’ll realize that abandoning yourself at this moment is what most girls are taught to do. And you’ll realize that if all of us refused, on that precipice of womanhood, to center our lives around the opinions of men, we could rule the world.

Dear twenty-five,

These years, everything is loud and fast. It’s all about the next shiny object, isn’t it? I know it’s even harder to hear me now when you’re more concerned with how things look than how things feel, but that way of living is hollow. It hungers.

You can’t sit still, you can’t stay single. You can’t hear me over the opinions of everyone else. You can’t seem to plant the seeds of confidence you thought would somehow sprout by now. There is an emptiness that follows you from room to room, that you try to drown out by any means necessary.

So you focus on the fun. You have a fun life and a fun partner and you wait for this to magically turn into stability. You assume that life will happen in neat and tidy chapters: marriage, children, and with all of this somehow a sense of belonging. But there is no spell that can do the work for you of self-worth.

You’ll never feel good enough until you see your own value independent of others. You’ll always wind up in the wrong situation, with the wrong people.

When you’re listening to all this outside noise, there’s no chance you can hear me so I’ll check in soon, I promise—though (and this is not a warning, just a gentle reminder) I may have to really speak up next time.

Have fun. Be safe. Bring a jacket.

Dear thirty-five,

Something has shifted. I’ve been raising my voice a bit with you lately, and every now and then I can tell it stops you in your tracks. I see you putting together the pieces, trying to sort out what’s been happening. I see you question things.

I’ve been trying to tell you that what you’re going through is not normal. You do not deserve the belittling, the intimidation. No matter how head over heels you were, or how much this felt like fate, the cycle you’re in now cannot be love, sweet girl—no matter how badly you want to make it fit the mold.

No matter how many times you tell yourself…things will change, things will get better, this is just a phase, maybe I need to be more supportive and fun and spontaneous and sexy and understanding and do more and be more and cook better meals and then maybe he won’t be so angry all the time and maybe I will feel good enough.

No matter how much that internal monologue plays in your head, I can tell it’s starting to lose its luster. Because you can also hear me now.

Remember that moment in your garden? The one where you stopped short of coming inside, took a deep breath through tear-soaked eyes, and thought: I can’t stay, but I can’t leave. I was the voice that spoke up loud and clear. I think I sort of startled you, dear. I told you: You can and you will—but it will be harder than you ever imagined.

I felt your knees buckle, felt the chills run down your spine. That little hiccup in your heart you get when you’re nervous. You didn’t know what it meant at the time, but I was trying to prepare you.

Because deciding to leave would mean finally seeing that you have made yourself small, so very small. You might finally recognize that the self-loathing you felt is not normal, that you were caught in a cycle of intermittent reinforcement, where you received just enough to keep you hooked, and that life is too fucking short for that, and that you are worth more.

It would mean leaving something that, despite the depth of its pain, also promised the illusion of security. Of belonging.

So when you finally had the guts to say enough, I knew it was because you finally heard me loud and clear for the first time in twenty years.

I came through you with the certainty of a tidal wave, refusing to be threatened. Refusing to be made to feel like shit for simply existing; but not only just existing: for caring for two children by yourself, for carrying the emotional and financial burden of two people, for doing it all and getting mocked for it. For being screamed at or grabbed by the arm when you’d try to leave the argument.

You knew then, as you finally let me speak, that you couldn’t raise two girls to think this was ok. They blessed you with a borrowed strength, just enough to propel you away.

This time, your heart didn’t hiccup. Your chest was heavy, but it was steady. There was no second-guessing: you could finally hear me.

I’ve been here all along. Waiting.

I have been waiting to lead you back to fifteen, back to that space where you can start again and start tending to your heart with the love you deserve.

The love you’ve craved from everyone else, not knowing you alone had the power to supply it.

I have been waiting, all of this time, to walk you back home.