Healing Isn’t a Destination

People look at me today and they see the woman I became. They see the business owner. They see the speaker, the mentor, the woman who walks into a room with confidence. They see the smile, the laughter, the strength.

What they don't see is the little girl who still lives inside of me.

I go back and forth between who I am today and who I used to be. I'm older now, but that child never left. She still remembers what it felt like to be unwanted. She still remembers wondering why no one came to save her. She still remembers sleeping with one eye open, believing she had to survive another day.

Maybe that's why I do what I do.

People think I started my company because I wanted to build a business. The truth is, I built it because somewhere inside of me I'm still trying to help the little girl no one helped. Every youth I mentor, every woman I encourage, every person coming home from incarceration, every family I pour into...I'm hoping they never have to feel the loneliness I carried.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm really saving them, or if, in some small way, they're helping save me.

Healing isn't a destination. It's a conversation between the woman I've become and the child I'm still learning to love. Some days the businesswoman shows up. Some days the wounded child does. Most days, they walk together.

My scars are covered now. Not because they're gone, but because I've learned how to carry them with grace. People mistake covered scars for healed wounds.

They're not the same.

There are still days when I hear that little girl asking, "Am I enough? Am I worth loving? Will someone choose me?"

So I chose her.

I choose to love the child who survived what should have broken her. I choose to honor the teenager who fought because she didn't know any other way to protect herself. I choose to celebrate the woman who refused to let her past become her future.

Maybe that's the real reason I keep showing up for other people.

Because every life I touch is another reminder that the little girl inside me was always worth saving too.