to my inner child

 I'm sorry you for everything you endured.

I'm also sorry for not realizing everything you did endure. I know I had no way of realizing it in the moment but I still feel really bad. Your childhood was traumatic and there were alot of unhealthy ways you could of reacted to that.

Instead of taking your trauma and using it as a crutch or an excuse to spiral out, you really tried everything you knew to do to protect yourself and thrive as much as you could as well as you could.

I'm grateful for your sacrifice and perseverance.

In a way, you sacrificed your childhood so I could make it past that stage of life and have a chance to experience better. 

Your perseverance was hope personified. 

My therapist mentioned the few things I assumed to be quirks but were really pieces of my inner child shining through were very profound. She said it seemed like the older I got, I brought a tiny ember of you with me. I loved that analogy. So it makes sense that when the time was right, I was able to place you in an environment where your fire could grow and provide the warmth that we both needed but never really had.

Thank you for sticking with it. Even though you may not coped in the best ways, you coped in the best ways you knew how. I'll try to remember that when my family didn't give me the care I needed, you got on your hands and knees and dug for dear life to find something-- anything to make sure I was taken care of. 

Even when you didn't know what to do, you tried.

I'm very glad that you stayed here and didn't decide to give up.

Thank you for believing in the me you dreamed I could be. I think I truly am becoming your wildest dreams.

I'm going to continue to work on me for us.

Your sacrifice will not be in vain.

It may not have been ideal but it's all we had and it served us for the time being.

I am currently in the stage of what my therapist called Post Traumatic Growth.

You'd be very proud of the work I've done so far. The work is literally how I was able to find you and create space to cherish you.

It was shocking, Earth-shattering, and really fucked me up for QUITE a bit of time lol.

In this new stage of life, I've accepted the truth I dug to uncover. I didn't like everything I found, but I really am constantly reminding myself something else my therapist told me: I can take the skills that developed as a result of my trauma and repurpose them into something that can serve me from now until forever.

So I am aiming to continue to work on me for us.

If I can be honest, meeting you (that part of myself I buried away and ignored for so long) wasn't pleasant. It literally flipped my world upside-down and made me question a lot. BUT I am glad I did.

I deserve to be whole and I could not possibly do that without revisiting my past.