Dear Sweet Child. . .

Oh, sweet girl.

You have absolutely no fucking idea what’s coming.

And perhaps that is one of God’s small mercies, because if someone handed you the entire itinerary up front, you would have packed snacks, several backup plans, an emergency contact list, and then politely declined the trip.

Unfortunately, life does not accept cancellations.

So here we go.

First, I need you to know something you are going to spend far too many years trying to prove:

You are not too much.

You aren’t too loud.
Too emotional.
Too sensitive.
Too complicated.
Too needy.
Too opinionated.
Too difficult to love.

You’re just going to encounter some people with exceptionally limited emotional bandwidth.

That is not the same thing.

Unfortunately, you won’t understand that for a long time.

You’re going to think that if you’re good enough, useful enough, successful enough, pretty enough, quiet enough, funny enough, skinny enough, strong enough—maybe people will stay.

So you’ll become very good at being whatever everyone needs.

Honestly, kid, you’re going to make an entire personality out of being useful.

And damn, will you be good at it.

You’ll learn how to read a room before you even realize other people simply walk into them.

You’ll notice the sighs.

The facial expressions.

The tiny changes in someone’s voice.

You’ll learn how to tell when something is wrong before anyone says a word because once upon a time, knowing the emotional temperature of a room felt important for survival.

Someday people will call this intuition.

Leadership.

Empathy.

Emotional intelligence.

And I suppose it becomes all of those things.

But you and I know where it started.

It started with a little girl learning how to stay safe.

And I am so deeply sorry you ever had to learn that.

There are things coming that I wish I could protect you from.

There are people who are supposed to protect you who won’t.

There are adults who will fail you.

There will be moments when you tell the truth and discover the horrifying reality that telling the truth doesn’t always make adults do the right thing.

You will learn far too young that monsters don’t always look like monsters.

Sometimes they look familiar.

Sometimes they share your blood.

And sometimes the people who should throw themselves between you and the monster will instead ask you to somehow coexist with it.

I wish I could change that part.

God, I wish I could.

I wish I could walk into those moments as the woman I am now, scoop you up, and say, Absolutely fucking not. She’s coming with me.

Because you deserved someone who made a scene for you.

Someone who believed you loudly.

Someone who protected you inconveniently.

Someone who chose you even when choosing you made everything else harder.

You deserved that.

And when you didn’t get it, you decided there must have been something wrong with you.

There wasn’t.

You were a child.

They were the adults.

That distinction matters.

Please stop carrying their failures like evidence against yourself.

You’re also going to lose Poppa.

I hate even writing that to you.

Because I know what he means to you.

I know how safe his love feels.

I know how much of your foundation has his fingerprints all over it.

And losing him is going to split your life into before and after.

There are things I could warn you about, but nothing could prepare you for that grief.

So I won’t try.

I’ll just tell you this:

Love him recklessly.

Listen to the stories again.

Roll your eyes at the advice you’ve heard fourteen thousand times.

Remember his voice.

Remember his laugh.

Remember the ridiculous little things you think you’ll never forget, because time is a thief and grief is weird.

And when the day comes that you have to figure out how to exist in a world where he doesn’t, know this:

You do.

Not gracefully.

Let’s manage expectations.

You stumble. You rage. You cry. You make questionable decisions. You survive things with sarcasm that probably should have required professional supervision.

But you keep going.

You always fucking keep going.

There will be other losses, too.

Friends you swore would be beside you forever will become strangers.

People you love will betray you.

Some will simply grow in a different direction.

Some villagers are permanent residents.

Some are seasonal tourists.

And a few apparently show up exclusively to set something on fire before leaving.

Try not to chase them.

You will.

I know.

But eventually you learn.

You’re going to love people with your whole heart because apparently moderation has never interested us.

You’ll give second chances.

And third chances.

And several chances that should have been denied by upper management.

Eventually, though, you will learn that loving someone does not require abandoning yourself.

That lesson is expensive.

But baby girl, you learn it.

You’re going to look in mirrors and hate the person staring back.

You’re going to believe your body determines your worth.

You’ll fight your body.

Punish it.

Shrink it.

Become angry when it refuses to cooperate.

And then your body will become sick in ways you cannot simply outwork, out-stubborn, organize, color-code, or intimidate into submission.

Which is frankly rude.

You will have to learn how to rest.

I know.

I can practically hear you gagging.

Rest without earning it.

Ask for help without immediately offering three favors in return.

Say, “I can’t today,” without submitting a notarized twelve-page explanation.

You’re still working on that one.

But progress, darling.

You will become a leader.

I know that probably sounds hilarious from where you’re sitting.

You?

The messy one?

The emotional one?

The girl who feels everything too deeply and notices everything and worries about everyone?

Yep.

Her.

And here’s the beautiful part:

You don’t become a leader despite those things.

You become one partly because of them.

Because you remember what it feels like to be overlooked.

You remember adults who noticed.

Teachers who stayed.

People who made you feel important when you felt invisible.

You remember every villager who handed you a brick when your foundation was crumbling.

And when it becomes your turn?

You hand out bricks.

You build people.

You advocate.

You teach.

You protect.

You laugh—frequently at wildly inappropriate times.

You lead with your whole heart.

And yes, sometimes that heart gets bruised because leadership turns out to involve people, which feels like a significant design flaw.

But you never become so polished that you forget the girl underneath it all.

Me.

You.

Us.

You’ll still be scared sometimes.

You’ll still wonder whether people are going to leave.

You’ll still occasionally look at someone who loves you and quietly wonder when they’re going to realize you’re too much work.

But eventually, you start questioning that voice instead of automatically believing it.

That changes everything.

You start healing.

And I need to warn you about healing because people really oversold that shit.

They make it sound like candles, journaling, yoga, inspirational quotes and suddenly you’re frolicking through a field completely unbothered.

Lies.

Healing is ugly.

It is grieving people who are still alive.

It is realizing some of your greatest strengths were originally survival mechanisms.

It is setting boundaries and then crying because you feel guilty for having them.

It is discovering that the version of you who survived cannot always be the version who gets to live.

It is terrifying.

And freeing.

And lonely.

And beautiful.

And absolutely worth it.

You will lose people when you start choosing yourself.

Let them go.

I know that sounds impossible.

But one day you will understand:

Anyone who only loves you when you are abandoning yourself does not love you.

And you, my sweet girl, are worth knowing.

The real you.

The loud-laughing, dark-humored, deeply-feeling, slightly chaotic, fiercely loyal, overthinking, overdressed, stubborn-as-hell you.

You are going to spend years wishing someone would come rescue you.

And then one day you’re going to look around and realize something incredible.

You did.

You became the woman you needed when you were little.

Not perfectly.

You’re still a work in progress.

Sometimes a construction zone.

Occasionally an active dumpster fire with excellent hair.

But you built her.

And along the way, you found people who love her.

Not because she performs.

Not because she fixes everything.

Not because she’s useful.

Not because she’s strong.

Just because she is Desiree.

There is a village waiting for you, little one.

Some of them you already know.

Some haven’t arrived yet.

Some will stay for decades.

Some will hold your hand through only one chapter.

But you are never going to stop finding people who see something in you worth loving.

And eventually—finally—you will see it too.

So when it hurts, cry.

When you’re scared, say it.

When you need help, reach.

When something feels wrong, trust yourself.

When someone tells you that you’re too much, resist the urge to become less.

And when life knocks you flat on your ass—and oh honey, it absolutely will—lie there for a minute.

Rest.

Swear.

Question your life choices.

Maybe eat something.

Then get back up when you’re ready.

You do not have to conquer the entire world today.

You never did.

You just have to keep becoming.

And I promise you this:

There is a version of you waiting on the other side of all that pain who is going to make you so fucking proud.

I know.

Because I’m her.

And after everything we have survived, lost, loved, grieved, rebuilt, forgiven, released and become, there is one thing I wish I could go back and tell you sooner:

I would choose you.

Before the accomplishments.

Before the leadership title.

Before you learned how to make everyone laugh.

Before you became strong.

Before you proved a damn thing.

I would choose the scared little girl.

The messy teenager.

The grieving eighteen-year-old.

Every version.

Even the ones we aren’t particularly proud of.

Especially those.

You spent so much of your life waiting for someone to look at you and say,

I see you. I believe you. I’m staying.

So here I am.

I see you.

I believe you.

And sweetheart—

I’m not going anywhere.

Love always,

You

P.S. Keep the attitude.
Turns out we need it.