The Women Who Helped Raise Me

I find a quiet little thing learning how to survive long before she should have needed to. I find bunk beds and shared bedrooms. Stuffed animals and dolls lined carefully around me, each with rhyming names because they were my babies. I pretended to be their mother. Their teacher. Their protector. Even then, I think I was trying to care for something. Trying to create safety. Trying to love something the way I hoped to be loved.

I find swan figurines and Scooby-Doo collections. I find a pet turtle named Fred whose tank drove my mother crazy because it smelled in between cleaning, and I loved him anyway. I find clothes arranged carefully by color and style because sometimes organizing things outside of me felt easier than understanding the things inside me. I find the smell of Pinesol and burnt cookies and Grandma Clauda arriving before she even walked into the room.

I find dragons and magic and libraries where stories climbed out of books and became real. I find a little girl who wanted to be a teacher. A little girl who pretended classrooms existed in bedrooms and living rooms. A little girl who wanted to be a singer but was terrified anyone would actually hear her voice. I find a little girl who was called too quiet. Too shy.

A little girl who often sat at recess with only one or two friends. A little girl who wanted people to like her so badly but was too afraid to really let herself be seen. There was bullying. There was sadness that ran deeper than people realized.

And I think what hurt most was not necessarily what was said. It was feeling unseen. I wish adults had understood how sad I really was. I wish someone had looked a little closer.

Because by eighth grade, I was carrying depression that was far too heavy for a child. I was carrying pain that I did not know how to name. And when I look back now, I realize something that breaks my heart a little:

I honestly cannot remember when little Jenny felt like a child. I only remember feeling like I was trying to survive. But when I imagine her sitting in front of me now—hands nervously twiddling her thumbs, eyes carrying that quiet sadness children should never have to hold—I realize something.

She would not ask me if we survived.

She would not ask me if we became successful.

She would not ask me if people finally liked us.

She would not ask if we became strong.

She would smile and ask:

"Do you want to play?"

I know she would. Because I always wished my mom had time to play with us. Not because she didn't love us. She loved us fiercely. Life was just heavy. She was young. She was surviving too. But children do not always understand survival. Children understand presence.

And suddenly I want to kneel down beside that little girl and tell her:

"Yes."

"I do."

"Let's play Barbies."

"Let's give every stuffed animal ridiculous rhyming names."

"Let's read books and collect forgotten words and imagine dragons living in libraries."

"Let's sing loudly in the car."

"Let's do all of the things you thought you had to grow out of."

Because little Jenny deserved joy too. And maybe that is the strange thing about becoming. I used to think becoming meant changing into someone else. Someone stronger. Someone healed. Someone unrecognizable from the girl I used to be. But maybe becoming is not that at all. Maybe becoming is realizing that little Jenny never disappeared.

She was there when I survived abuse. She was there when cancer tried to take pieces of me. She was there in every poem I wrote. She was there when BFF Youth Network was born and I looked at children and saw possibility instead of limitation. She was there every time I encouraged someone who felt invisible. Every time I sat beside someone hurting. Every time I loved fiercely.

She was there all along. Still collecting forgotten words. Still believing in magic. Still hoping people could be good. Still wanting to save the world.

Maybe healing is not only learning how to protect the little girl you once were. Maybe sometimes healing...is finally sitting on the floor beside her.

And maybe after all these years—

after all the surviving—

little Jenny and I finally get to play.

— Jennifer Rene Wallace