Jessica Woodville | Memoir & Musings

You won’t believe me, but you survive. Not just the day-to-day battles, but the long war. The years of being invisible. The times you wished you could disappear entirely. You survive it all. And one day, you write it down. You speak it out loud. You turn it into something more than pain. You turn it into purpose.

I wish I could reach back in time and sit beside you in those dark moments. The nights when you cried yourself to sleep in silence. The days when your stomach hurt so badly you thought it was your fault. It wasn’t. None of it was.

You were just a child. A smart, fierce, messy, brave, hurting child. And you didn’t need fixing. You needed protecting.

I want to tell you that your sensitivity is not a flaw. Your ability to feel everything so deeply—to cry when others held it in, to notice what others missed, to sense when something wasn’t right before anyone else—those are not weaknesses. They are your magic. They are what make you a future writer, an advocate, a mother who sees what so many others miss.

I know you’re scared. Not just of the yelling or the silence that comes after, but of being abandoned, of being labeled “too much,” of loving people who keep disappearing. You’re scared that no one will ever truly want to stay. But you learn, eventually, that the ones worth keeping are the ones who don’t make you shrink to fit.

I wish I could tell you that it’s okay to stop pretending. You don’t have to smile when you’re breaking. You don’t have to take care of everyone to be worthy of love. The ones who told you love had to be earned were wrong.

You grow up trying to be everything to everyone. You twist yourself into knots trying to be good, trying to be small, trying not to take up space—because somewhere along the way, someone taught you that being lovable meant being quiet.

But little me, I need you to know: you were always lovable. Loud or quiet. Messy or strong. Screaming or silent.

You carry more than your share. You fawn to survive. You become the “easy one” so no one notices how broken you feel inside. And still, somehow, you keep going. Still, you find light in books and laughter in chaos. Still, you tuck dreams into corners of your mind no one could touch.

You survive.

One day, you stand in front of your own children and realize that you are the safe place now. You recognize how far you’ve come, even if you’re still healing. Even if the road is uneven. Even if you’re still afraid sometimes. You choose to show up differently. And that matters. That changes things.

If I could wrap my arms around you, I’d tell you that you never needed to be perfect. That your worth was never conditional. That softness is not a flaw.

You grow up to become someone who turns scars into stories and pain into pages. You become someone who learns to rest, even when the world keeps pushing. Someone who finally lets herself be seen. Someone who builds a village for others who never felt like they belonged.

And maybe you still cry in the quiet sometimes. Maybe you still have nightmares. Maybe your body still flinches at ghosts from the past. But you are no longer that scared little girl in the desert.

You are the woman she dreamed of becoming.

And she would be so proud.

Love, Future You