The Woman I Carried Through Time

There are versions of me I’ve carried through time. Some I’ve tried to protect, some I’ve tried to bury, and some I’ve only just begun to forgive. Healing has shown me that they all deserve to be seen. So tonight, I’m writing letters—to the girl I was, to the woman I’ve become, and to every version in between.

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To my inner little girl:

I’ve spent my whole life trying to protect you. Trying to soothe you. Trying to remind you that you are not the sum of the things people did to you.

When I look at my daughters, my heart aches for you. I see in them all the pieces of you that were never nurtured—your laughter, your beauty, your massive heart, your compassion, your delight in all things girly. They get to live in that light, while you were deprived of it. That truth breaks me. Sometimes it makes me overprotective. Sometimes it makes me angry. And more than anything, it makes me wish you could have been loved the way I love them.

I realize now that in my desperate attempts to guard you, I’ve ended up building walls around us both. I’ve closed myself off, convincing myself it was safety when in reality it was just another kind of prison. And I hate that. I hate it almost more than what happened to you—because it means the wounds kept writing your story long after they should have.

But here’s the truth: I see you. I carry you. And I refuse to keep silencing you.

You deserved better then. You deserve better now. I won’t keep you hidden anymore. I’ll let you breathe. I’ll let you laugh so loudly it fills every room. I’ll love you the way you should have been loved from the very beginning. You are safe with me now. And I won’t abandon you.

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To the teenage me:

I remember you—the way you always felt like you didn’t quite fit anywhere. You tried so hard to blend in but always felt like a misplaced puzzle piece. I wish I could tell you it feels different now, but the truth is—it doesn’t. That sense of not belonging never fully disappeared.

And yet, some things stayed constant. Music still steadies our heartbeat. Photography still helps us see the world more clearly. We’re still undone by sunsets, by the hush of sunrise, by the softness of flowers and the wildness of waves crashing to shore. We still wear black more often than not. We still rarely wear makeup. And we’re still too quiet in rooms where maybe we should have spoken louder.

But I think you’d be proud of me.

Because I learned how to say no.

I learned to trust the tight pull in my gut instead of ignoring it.

I learned that choosing differently than what’s expected doesn’t make me wrong, or selfish, or unworthy. It just means I have my own mind—and that’s enough.

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To the version of me in her 20s:

God, that didn’t go as planned, did it?

But we tried. We loved. We fought. We gave birth to eight of the most beautiful souls this world will ever know.

And as we stumbled and clawed our way toward 30, we started to learn. We learned value. We learned worth. We began to find our voice.

And then one day—we finally left. God, we finally left.

That marriage… it was terrible. And I’m so sorry I made you stay so long. I’m sorry for every time you swallowed your voice just to keep the peace. I’m sorry for the ways you settled, for the nights you cried yourself to sleep, for the bruises no one could see. You deserved better than that.

If I could go back in time, I’d pull you out sooner. I’d tell you not to wait for someone else to change. I’d tell you that being alone would never hurt as much as being unloved beside the wrong person.

But even though I can’t, I can thank you. Because you survived. And survival turned into strength.

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To the woman I am now:

Here we are—in our 30s. Still learning. Still healing. But no longer just surviving.

Now I know what I deserve. I know what love should feel like. I know that boundaries aren’t walls, they’re doors I get to lock or open. I’ve learned that joy is something I get to choose. That life is something I get to want, not just endure.

I’m still fighting every day, but this fight is different now. It’s not about clawing for survival—it’s about building a life worth living. About wanting to wake up. About wanting to be alive.

And maybe that’s the most powerful thing I can say to every version of me that came before:

We made it.