Hey, little one:
How are you feeling?
How is your wound these days?
Do you feel safe here?
What scares you?
What causes you to shut down?
How are you?
I am so sorry if I still do not know how to hold you, and that I struggle making space for you. I want to learn to listen without judgment; to listen with an open heart.
I'm thinking that, maybe, somewhere along the way you lost your trust in me. I understand. I know that you are child, and you may not understand your own emotions, you are free to feel them without judging them, contrary to what we learn to do as we grow older. I can see how you maybe put me on a pedestal, having no doubt in your innocent little heart, that the moment you felt wounded, I would be there to ease that pain. It doesn't seem like a huge expectation to have, but on my end, accepting that wound would have implied accepting the thing that caused it. It has been a challenge for me to navigate life when you show up because I haven’t had the necessary emotional tools to welcome you fully. I am sorry if it has made you feel unwanted, suppressed, ashamed, discarded… when all you needed was love.
I can feel my mind wandering away now as I try to write this and reach you. These are the moments where I typically abandon you.
Will you please be patient with me?
I’m sorry I distract myself on my phone, or watching TV, or doing anything but pausing and listening when you want to speak.
I think that somewhere along the way, dissociating myself from you was the only way to save myself.
But now I am realizing that I was actually protecting part of myself at your sake until I was ready to welcome you home. To welcome you to my heart, instead of making you an enemy of it.
There is love here. I know we’re both vulnerable. I know this is scary, uncharted territory. But I also know that we make the rules. That there’s no right or wrong way to do this, and that is is now time to make a change in our relationship. Would you like to evolve with me as we figure it out along the way?
We’re going to fall, trip over, and be clumsy as hell, and I probably won’t handle this perfectly. Neither will you. And that’s okay.
We don’t have to start big. We can start by acknowledging that we’re in this and that there’s hope.
I love you. You really do make me beautiful, even if it’s hard for you to see right now. This softness that you feel as you read this letter? You inspired it. As we further this healing, you’ll be able to understand.
Hold my hand, little one. We have an entire life ahead of us.
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