For years, I had the vague sense that I was stuck somewhere in adolescence. I couldn’t explain it clearly—there was no specific moment, no obvious trauma to point to. Just a quiet, persistent discomfort, as if something essential hadn’t quite formed. I knew something was off, but I didn’t know where to look. And then—one day—it clicked.
The insight wasn’t dramatic, but its effect was. In an instant, everything rearranged itself inside me. I saw it clearly: I’d been trying to live as an adult without ever leaving the consciousness of an eleven-year-old girl.
Suddenly, my whole life made sense.
I had been sprinting through the phases of adulthood—trying to catch up. First rushing through my twenties, then my thirties, and now, as a mature woman, I feel like I’m moving at double speed, trying to “live through” all the stages I missed emotionally.
What’s wild is that in real time, I had looked like an adult. I had adult responsibilities, adult achievements. But underneath it all, emotionally, I’d stayed that little girl. The one who just wanted her parents to show her they loved her. And because she didn’t get that, she went looking for it in every friend, partner, boss, colleague—pleading silently: “Do you love me? Am I enough?”
And I never saw her. I didn’t know she was there, running the show.
So I kept striving, achieving, doubting, crying—confused as to why I couldn’t just feel happy. But now I understand. That little girl was still hoping someone would finally prove her lovable.
But here’s the shift: I saw her. And I didn’t just understand her with my mind. I felt her. And I held her.
And then something opened.
All the things I had known intellectually—about self-love, about the kindness of the world, about our wholeness—finally settled into my heart. They stopped being ideas and became reality. My reality.
I realized that love isn’t something we extract from others. It’s something we generate. That the world is not trying to push me away. That people aren’t secretly proving my unworthiness. That I’m okay. I’m already whole. And nothing is really holding me back—not my past, not my appearance, not even the story of my suffering.
And so the grief began to dissolve. The pain that once felt endless started to make sense, not as punishment, but as part of the path.
I stopped comparing myself to others, stopped evaluating everyone around me. When I do catch myself slipping back into those patterns, I see it now—and I gently step out. Each person is walking their own journey. And none of those journeys need to be perfect to be meaningful. Beauty can—and does—emerge even from the broken parts.
For the first time, I can look back and not regret a single year. Not the confused years, not the lost years, not the moments of silence and sorrow. Because now I see them for what they were: necessary. All of it had a place. All of it belonged.
And just as deep as the confusion was two weeks ago, equally profound is the beauty I feel now. This catharsis—this shift—isn’t about solving anything. It’s about seeing. It’s about waking up to life, and to the truth of who I’ve always been.
So yes—I finally grew up. Just a little more. And with that, life is opening again.
