If I could do it all again…
I wouldn’t change the people
or the places
or the things that happened.
I’d keep it all the same.

I’d change the way I looked at it all.
At how I became scared of life doing its thing.

The way I blamed myself.
The way I thought it was my fault for feeling too much.
The way I shut down when things got heavy,
because I didn’t know how to stay with the hard stuff.

I used to call myself weak.
I used to think if I was stronger,
I wouldn’t feel so deeply.
I wouldn’t break so often.

But if I could go back…

I’d hold myself differently.
I’d sit with her — the girl who became the woman who didn’t know how to manage life moving through her — and tell her she didn’t have to.

I’d tell her that her softness and her sensitivity wasn’t the problem.
That she didn’t need to be fixed.
That she didn’t need to become stronger or more resilient to life.
That she didn’t need to hold so tightly and brace.
That it was never her fault that she would feel it all.

I’d stop trying to run from the sadness.
I’d stop shaming the parts of me that hurt.
I’d let myself feel it all — without the guilt or the overwhelm.

And maybe then I would’ve known…
that all of it was part of becoming.
Not breaking.
Not failing.
Just becoming more of who I really am.

I would understand they were just experiences that made the cracks to let the light in.

If I could do it all again, I would love all of her.
Messy.
Tender.
And brave in ways the world will never understand.