To the Girl I Used to Be

Look at her. Seriously — just look. She really thought she had it all figured out. She thought love meant bending over backwards until her spine damn near snapped. She thought if she just tried harder, smiled bigger, and stayed quiet enough, everything would work out.

Bless her little overachieving heart. She had no clue what was coming. No idea she’d end up sitting on the kitchen floor at 2 AM, ugly crying into a cup of cold coffee, surrounded by unpaid bills and the remains of whatever the hell she called dinner that night. She didn’t know she’d have to leave people she thought she couldn’t live without. Or that she’d end up raising kids alone in a place she never pictured herself living.

And she definitely didn’t know she’d survive all of it.

She thought that one guy was her forever. Spoiler alert: he was not. He was more like a really inconvenient life lesson wrapped in bad decisions and red flags she tried to paint white. She thought love was supposed to hurt a little. Newsflash: it’s not.

She also thought she had to look perfect all the time — like if she could just suck in her stomach and smile pretty, maybe she’d finally feel like enough. But she was always enough. She just didn’t know it yet.

And now? I look at her and I don’t feel shame anymore. I feel proud. Because even though she was a little clueless and a lot codependent, she never stopped trying. She never stopped hoping there was something better waiting on the other side of all that chaos.

If you’re cringing at old photos of yourself — relax. You were doing the best you could with what you knew. You were trying to survive, to love, to make sense of this shitstorm we call life.

So here’s to her: the girl who thought she had it all figured out. The girl who tried way too hard for people who didn’t deserve it. The girl who didn’t know her own worth yet.

If she could see me now? She’d probably say, Damn, we really made it through all that? And I’d say, Yeah, babe. We did. And we’re just getting started.