If this is where I begin, then it feels fitting to begin with her the version of me who quietly yearned for a space to speak and be heard.
Dear sweet girl,
I think it’s time we talked. You’ve been inside of me, just waiting for the day someone heard you. Waiting for someone to acknowledge you. I see you. I hear you. I am here, for you.
You took the weight of the world on your shoulders.
You are so tiny and young still.
You are fun and ambitious and quirky and empathetic.
These are attributes that never go away.
Math isn’t really your strong suit, but you are meant for so much more.
but there are a few things I want you to know,
I think one of the quietest ways we hurt ourselves is by speaking about our past like it was a mistake we had to escape.
And I get why you might feel that way.
Because you’re going to become someone more aware, more grounded, more certain of what you deserve. And when that happens, you’ll look back at yourself right now and feel the distance. You’ll see the choices you wouldn’t make again, the people you won’t recognize yourself in anymore, the moments that feel unfamiliar.
But unfamiliar doesn’t mean unworthy.
You are not something to outgrow with shame.
I didn’t get to where I am by accident. I got here because of you. This version of you. The one who is still figuring it out without clarity, without the language, without the boundaries you’ll one day carry so effortlessly.
You have stayed a little longer than you should have, you are the reason I can understand my limits deeply, not just in theory.
You gave too much you’re the reason I know how deeply I am capable of loving.
You tolerated things I now speak against.
And that matters.
Because it’s easy to talk about boundaries once you’ve already learned them. It’s easy to say “I would never accept that now” when you’re no longer the version of yourself who didn’t know she deserved better.
But right now, you don’t know yet.
Learning in real time is messy. It looks like hoping when you probably shouldn’t. It looks like giving people chances they haven’t earned. It looks like holding onto something because you feel it, even when it isn’t being held back the same way.
But listen to me, resilience is nothing to be embarrassed about, as a friend will tell you one day "Aya you are stupidly resilient".
It is one of the bravest things about you.
That you stayed soft in a world that constantly teaches you to harden. To keep believing in love, in connection, in something deeper, even when things don’t unfold the way you imagined. That isn’t weakness.
And I know there are parts of you right now that feel heavy. The parts you don’t talk about. The parts that are carrying more than anyone can see. The parts that are trying to be everything for everyone else while still figuring out how to be something for yourself.
Give yourself grace.
But I also know you won’t always give that to yourself. Sometimes, you’ll look back and judge her you. You’ll call her naive. You’ll think she should’ve known better.
You didn’t.
You were doing the best you could with what you had.
And somehow you still got me here.
Because growth isn’t supposed to feel like erasure. You’re not becoming someone completely different. You’re becoming more honest, more aware, more intentional but I'm still connected to every version of you that made that possible.
I don’t want you to become someone who only offers herself love in hindsight. Who only speaks kindly about her past once it no longer feels like hers.
And sometimes we have to forget how we feel in order to remember what we actually deserve, and you deserve the world never settle for anything less than that.
So thank you
For trying without guarantees.
For loving without certainty.
For choosing, even when you didn’t always choose right.
You’re not the final version . You’re still becoming. There will be a future version of you looking back at who you are right now, noticing all the things you didn’t know yet, all the ways you still had to grow.
