If I Could Tell My Younger Self Three Things

I was thinking about her today. The younger me. The one who kept trying to be “good.” Who grew up quiet, soft, and emotional in a house that didn’t have the language or capacity for softness. The one who needed more than what was available. The one who started shrinking before she even knew what shrinking was. The one who learned early that nobody was coming to save her, so she better figure out how to save herself.

I don’t remember the exact moment she disappeared. I just know she slowly faded. Piece by piece. Loss by loss. My brother. My grandparents. The adults in my life who were supposed to raise me, teach me, hold me — but were too overwhelmed, numb, grieving, or angry to love me out loud. I watched the women in my family love through survival, and I became someone who believed that was the only type of love I was allowed to have.

And then I became a mother before I became healed. Before I ever learned how to be held. Before I even knew what I needed. I had babies when I was still a baby emotionally, trying to figure out how to love myself while being responsible for little souls who needed the softness I barely had access to. And it broke me some days. It still breaks me some days. I know I’m a good mother, but I also know what it feels like to look in the mirror and wonder if I failed them because I never got the blueprint for being nurtured myself.

So I worked. I performed. I became whatever I thought would keep people close. I swallowed my voice. I ignored my needs. I let love hurt me because I thought that was normal. I stayed where I was breaking because leaving felt like losing. And I didn’t think I could survive one more loss.

But look at me now.
Look at us now.
Not perfect, but learning. Not healed, but healing. Not whole, but returning.

Here are three things that got me there.

I didn’t grow up being mirrored. Nobody looked at me and said, “You’re good. You’re worthy. You’re allowed to take up space.” Love in my household was inconsistent, transactional, or tied to performance. So I learned early that if I wanted to be kept, I had to make myself easy. Easy to manage. Easy to love. Easy to swallow. I learned how to shrink entire parts of myself before I even knew I had a “self” to protect. And when I carried that into friendships, relationships, motherhood — I didn’t realize I was still operating from scarcity. Still trying to be digestible. Still apologizing for existing. But the turning point came when I realized that none of that shrinking ever earned me safety. It only earned me exhaustion. I was never the problem. The problem was that I had been trained to believe I needed to be less to deserve what should’ve been mine in full.

And every time I showed softness or sensitivity, I was told I needed to toughen up — “you’re too soft, you need a backbone, you’re a doormat.” But nobody ever taught me how to have one. Nobody guided me. I was told what I should be, never shown how to become it. So I kept shrinking, thinking that being smaller meant being safer.

And I carried that into everything — friendships, motherhood, love. I thought being “low maintenance” was the goal. I thought quiet suffering was maturity. I thought self-abandonment was love. But it wasn’t until this relationship — the one I’m in now — that I finally had to face myself. People love saying, “Don’t date until you’re healed.” But healing alone can only take you so far. Sometimes love is what pulls the wound open. Sometimes being loved correctly forces you to see how much you’ve neglected yourself. Being with someone who actually sees me, calls me out, calls me in, and refuses to let me disappear inside myself has been healing and humbling and uncomfortable in ways I wasn’t ready for. It stripped me down. It dragged me to the mirror. It made me confront the ways I betrayed myself long before anyone else ever could.

And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
None of that shrinking ever earned me safety. It only earned me exhaustion.

I spent most of my life confusing being useful with being worthy. I learned early that the quickest way to avoid being discarded was to make myself necessary. So I became the helper. The listener. The fixer. The strong one. The reliable one. The one who could take it. The one who didn’t need anything. I made myself indispensable to everyone but myself. And the sad part is, nobody asked me to. I volunteered for that job because I thought I had to earn my space. My emotional upbringing taught me that attention was conditional and affection had to be worked for. So I hustled. I hustled for approval, for affection, for love I should’ve already had access to. I thought if I could just do enough, be enough, give enough, I would finally feel chosen.

But being needed is not the same as being valued. Being applauded is not the same as being cared for. And being strong is not the same as being supported.
Motherhood amplified this in ways I wasn’t ready for. Suddenly I was the center of everyone’s orbit, but no one was the center of mine. I became the landing place for my children’s needs, my partner’s needs, my family’s needs, my job’s needs — and somewhere along the way I forgot I had needs too. And when I did try to rest, I felt guilty. Lazy. Like I was failing. I equated stillness with neglect. But the truth is: I was the one being neglected.

And then grief came — losing my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my brother, the women who held what little softness I had left. I kept going through it all. Smiling. Showing up. Performing strength like it was oxygen. Because I didn’t know another way to be.
Rest felt like surrender. Like if I stopped holding everything together, everything would fall apart. But the shift came when I realized I was the thing falling apart. Quietly. Slowly. Invisibly.

I know I keep saying it but I will say it again…
Rest isn’t a reward. Care isn’t something you earn. Worth isn’t tied to output.

I am learning that I do not exist to be consumed. I do not exist to carry everything. I do not exist to be the strong one every time.

I am allowed to rest just because I am human.
I am allowed to take up space even when I bring nothing but myself.
My softness is not a liability. My stillness is not neglect.
My worth was mine before I ever learned to prove it.

I didn’t know I had a choice for a long time. Pain was just the backdrop of my life. Discomfort felt familiar. I didn’t even call it suffering. I called it love. I called it loyalty. I called it “working through it.” I called it “staying strong.” I assumed love hurt. I assumed connection required sacrifice. I assumed that if it was breaking me, I just needed to bend more.

And when you grow up in emotional famine, you really will eat anything. Even crumbs will start looking like meals when you’ve never been fed right.

So I lived without boundaries. I tolerated things I should’ve walked away from the second they brushed up against my peace. I held on because I thought endurance proved love. I thought if I could just hold on long enough, be patient enough, give enough, swallow enough — eventually I’d earn safety. But all I earned was exhaustion. All I did was teach people that I was a place they could leave their mess, and return to, without consequence.

But I get to choose now.

I get to choose who has access to me. I get to choose which rooms I walk into. I get to choose who I call my people. I get to choose where I place my energy, where I soften, where I open, where I stay, and where I leave. Choosing myself is not abandonment. Choosing myself is not betrayal. Choosing myself is coming back home.

And the wildest part?
The moment I stopped begging to be loved correctly, the right love started showing up.

Boundaries didn’t push the right people away. They revealed them.
The wrong ones just got loud on their way out.

A little while ago, the love I have now looked at me and said something so simple it stopped me mid-spiral. She said, “Why are you giving your heart to people who make you earn what you give freely?”

I just sat there. Quiet. Because read that again:

Why are you giving your love to people who make you prove you deserve theirs?

She reminded me that my love is soft. Warm. Intentional. Generous. That I deserve to be in rooms where that is the norm, not the exception. Where my energy is matched, not drained.

And for the first time in my life, I realized I’ve never actually been loved in the way I love. Not until now. I’ve been tolerated. Utilized. Praised for my strength. But rarely ever held. I’ve been the one pouring, supporting, absorbing, adjusting — and I called that connection. But it wasn’t. It was survival.

Hearing her say it out loud felt like being seen from the inside. Not just how I show up — but why I learned to show up that way.

She didn’t say it like a correction. She said it like a reminder. Like she could see the softness in me I’ve been trying to protect for years.

And the thing is — the love I have today doesn’t ask me to shrink. She meets me. Soft for soft. Care for care. Effort for effort. Not perfectly. Not magically. But intentionally.

And that changed everything. I didn’t know love could be something that matched me instead of something I had to survive.

I used to think I had to earn love by staying in places that hurt me.
But I know better now.

Leaving is not quitting.
Resting is not laziness.
Choosing myself is not selfish.
And if it is? Then maybe we all need to be a little selfish sometimes.

Be good, always. 🤎

Affirmation of the Day
I am allowed to choose myself without apologizing for it.
My love is sacred. My peace is mine to protect.
I do not chase what does not meet me.

-a note to myself