I weep for my past self, the girl aching to be held and known and adored. I weep for the woman facing her present with courage and without doubt.

I weep because it is right in the moment; it is right to allow wounds to recede by way of a flood. To heal—properly—is to give in. To discard shame. To banish hatred. To invite gratitude, and contentment, and later: wonder. Wonders exist at the end of every ache.

There, just at the end of the weeping or bracing or stomach whirling, is a softness, a caressing, a goldenness that quietly emerges. It is gentle. Silk. Dandelions, or buttercups held under the chin, casting a yellow light faintly on your skin. You cannot be released until you reach this spring-colored conclusion.

This light, this softness, becomes easier to reach the more the healing is allowed to occur. I wish for you to find the strength to heal. Though it can be a weary business, it is not avoidable if you hope to live as you were meant to, before you knew your harried mind more than you knew skinned knees and butterfly nets and sprinkler dances.

There—you are invited to remember the past, but only to recall the self you loved before you knew what it was to hate. When mirrors were for pulling out square bottom teeth and pretending to be a ballerina-princess-soccer-player. Delve deep if you must; some treasured dreams are so buried as to seem lost. But lost they are not. They have always been, and will endure.

Let your years not pass you by in the terrified, angry way. Let yourself break open. Let yourself weep. You are not broken. You are not unworthy. You are not a mess, a joke, a loser, a failure. You are healing. You are on a glorious quest to return to yourself.