If I could go back in time and sit for a moment with the little girl I used to be, I think I would find her in her room. Quiet. Frustrated. Sad. Smiling, maybe — because she often smiled — but with something missing in her eyes. I would stand at the door and recognize her immediately.
I would feel it in my body before she even said a word: the heaviness, the loneliness, the disappointment, the exhaustion of being alive without really knowing why. I would see the part of her that wanted to keep going, and the other part that was already so tired of trying. The part that wondered if life was always going to feel this hard. The part that wanted to disappear. The part that kept asking: What’s the point?
And I think I would knock softly and say:
Hi, Meli. I see you.
I see your sadness. I see your frustration. I see how alone you feel. I see the smile on your face and the emptiness behind it. I see the part of you that feels like giving up. But I also see something else.
I see a flame in you. It is small right now, and it has been dimmed again and again. It has been ignored, doubted, and made to feel like it is not enough. But it is there. I can see it clearly, even if you can’t. And if I could sit beside you, I would tell you this:
Life will not suddenly become perfect. I cannot promise you that nothing will hurt again. I cannot promise you that one day everything will make sense, or that you will wake up and never feel sadness, anger, fear, emptiness, or doubt again.
That is not how life works. There will still be pain. There will still be loss. There will still be disappointment. There will still be days when your thoughts turn against you and tell you terrible things.
But that is not the whole story.
What I want you to know is this: there is so much more ahead than you could ever imagine.
And if you could feel, just for one second, what I feel now — if you could see what I can see from here — you would be dancing. Not because life becomes easy. Not because suffering disappears. But because one day you will begin to understand that your life does not have to be built around pain, fear, or other people’s opinions of you.
One day, you will stop waiting for someone else to tell you that you are enough.
One day, you will begin to learn how to hold yourself.
You will learn that when no one taught you to believe in yourself, learning to do it on your own becomes one of the bravest things you can ever do.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — E.E. Cummings
Because that is what was missing for so long. Not your worth. Not your sensitivity. Not your intelligence. Not your strength.
What was missing was the ability to see yourself clearly. To love yourself. To believe that you were worthy of tenderness, kindness, and care.
You thought you had to earn love.
You thought you had to become someone else to deserve it.
You thought your sadness, your confusion, your failures, your sensitivity, your not fitting in, all meant that something was wrong with you.
But nothing was wrong with you.
You were hurting.
You were unseen.
And you were trying to survive without the kind of love and support that helps a person trust themselves.
When that happens, it is easy to start living as if other people are right about you. It is easy to become the person the world expects you to be. It is easy to believe the voice that says: you are too much, not enough, incapable, unlovable, behind, broken.
And if nobody teaches you otherwise, that voice can begin to sound like the truth.
I know, because for a long time, it did.
There was a time when I believed I was not intelligent, not beautiful, not interesting, not worthy of love. A girl who repeated school, who felt behind, who often felt like she did not belong anywhere. A girl who thought she had nothing special to offer and nothing important ahead of her. A girl who moved through life already carrying the feeling of being less.
And when you believe that about yourself, you begin to live from that place.
You accept less.
You choose what hurts you.
You let people treat you badly.
You stop expecting anything better because, deep down, you no longer think you deserve it.
That is what happened to me for a long time. But then, little by little, something shifted.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. Not because one magical thing happened and suddenly everything became better. It shifted because I kept going. Because instead of giving up completely, I stayed curious.
Because even in the middle of all that confusion, some part of me kept whispering: there has to be more than this. And I listened.
I traveled.
I left.
I observed.
I began again.
I slowly started seeing that life could be bigger than the small, painful version I had been living inside.
And over time, I stopped asking only, Why does life hurt so much? and began asking, What matters to me? Who do I want to be? What kind of life feels true to me?
That changed everything. Not because I became fearless. Not because I stopped struggling. But because I began trying to live according to what was important to me, instead of only according to what I feared or what others expected of me.
And that is how I got here.
After years of not being very present on this blog, because I was focused on completing my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, I now look back and think: what a journey. It feels as if I have lived a hundred lives.
I started that degree in 2020, in English — a language that is not my own — and it was not easy. In the beginning, it took me so much effort just to read, understand, and write. Every essay felt hard. Every step demanded more than I knew I had.
But I kept going. Not because I wanted a title to prove something to the world. Not because I thought it would finally make me lovable or worthy. But because I genuinely wanted to learn. Because I loved it.
Because I was curious. Because page by page, idea by idea, I felt something in me come alive.
And that matters.
Then came motherhood. And that, too, changed everything.
Carrying my daughter while finishing my degree and writing my thesis felt like a kind of miracle. Not a perfect miracle — a human one. A difficult, emotional, demanding, beautiful one.
And now here I am. Thirty-seven years old. Looking in the mirror and thinking: wow. What a journey. How far we have come.
Not because life stopped hurting.
Not because everything worked out perfectly.
Not because I became some ideal version of a healed human being.
But because I stopped abandoning myself. Because one day I looked at my life and said: enough.
Enough living according to what other people think of me.
Enough letting other people’s projections become my truth.
Enough letting my own mind drag me under and call it reality.
Enough building my life around fear, shame, and the need to be accepted.
I began choosing something else. And what I choose now is this:
I choose to live in a way that represents me.
Not with toxic positivity.
Not by pretending pain does not exist.
Not by acting as if life is easy or fair.
But by saying: yes, life can be painful and unjust and exhausting — and I still want to laugh, love, dance, explore, learn, create, walk, feel, and be fully here.
I still want to notice the sky, even when it is grey.
I still want to enjoy a good cup of coffee, a meal I love, a conversation, a walk, a run, a piece of music, a quiet moment in nature.
I still want to absorb life with as much presence as I can.
Those are not small things to me. They are life. That is what living fully means to me now.
Not always having more.
Not constantly chasing bigger things.
Not waiting to become someone else before I allow myself to live.
But learning to say: this moment matters too.
Even this one.
Even if I am tired.
Even if I am angry.
Even if I am struggling.
Even if my mind is loud.
Because my thoughts are not always the truth. My feelings are real, but they do not define the whole of who I am. And if I have learned anything, it is that life does not need to be perfect to be worth living.
Sometimes what we need most is not a new life, but a new relationship with the life we already have.
A little more compassion.
A little more honesty.
A little more courage.
A little more tenderness toward ourselves.
Sometimes what we need is to go back — not to stay in the past, but to return for the child inside us who stopped believing she was worthy of good things.
To hold her hand.
To look her in the eyes.
To tell her: you are not too late. You are not too broken. You are not too little. There is more for you. Keep going.
So if I could speak to that little girl one more time before leaving, I think I would hug her and say this:
Please do not give up. Do not believe everything your mind tells you. Do not build your whole life around pain, or around waiting for someone else to choose you, approve of you, or finally tell you that you matter. You already matter.
And one day, you will begin to see that. One day, you will build a life that feels more like yours. One day, you will understand that being yourself is not something to apologize for. One day, you will realize that the smallest things — a song, a walk, a warm drink, a baby in your arms, a good conversation, the light in the sky — were never small at all.
And one day, if the next minute were your last, you will be able to say:
What a life. What a beautiful, difficult, extraordinary life.
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” — Brené Brown
Maybe that is why I wanted to write this.
Not only for the girl I used to be, but for anyone who grew up without being taught how to believe in themselves. For anyone who learned too early to doubt their worth. For anyone who still carries the voice of shame, fear, rejection, or not-enoughness somewhere deep inside.
Maybe what you need is not to become someone completely new. Maybe what you need is to return to yourself.
To the part of you that still hopes.
To the part of you that still wants to live.
To the part of you that still knows there must be something more.
If no one taught you how to believe in yourself, that is not your fault.
But little by little, it can become your work.
And it is brave work. Quiet work. Sacred work.
So go back, if you need to.
Visit the younger version of yourself. Sit with them. Listen. Hold them gently. Tell them what they needed to hear. Tell them they are not broken. Tell them they are worthy of love. Tell them they are allowed to take up space. Tell them life will still hurt sometimes, but it will also hold beauty, meaning, tenderness, laughter, music, freedom, and moments that will make it all feel real again.
And then keep going.
Not perfectly. Not fearlessly. Not pretending everything is okay. But honestly. Gently. As yourself.
Because this life — however messy, painful, and beautiful it may be — is still yours. And maybe that is where healing begins.