No one tells you what it feels like to grow up without a guide. To have to piece together womanhood from scraps. Songs on the radio, glimpses of other mother and daughter relationships, strangers offering kindness you pretend not to need.
After my mom died, there wasn’t a hand to hold through the darkness. No one to teach me softness, self-care, or even how to grieve. I learned to survive in silence, carrying my pain like it was stitched into my skin.
For years, I thought someone would come save me. That maybe an aunt, a teacher, a friend’s mom, someone would see me drowning and pull me out. But no one did.
And then, one day, I realized if I wanted light, I’d have to crawl toward it myself.
It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t quick. I scraped my knees, dragged my fears behind me, and clawed through every “you’re not enough” I’d ever been told. There were nights I thought I’d never make it out that maybe I was meant to stay in that cold, quiet dark forever.
But something in me refused to die there.
So I crawled. I bled. I clawed my way through grief, abandonment, and the sharp edges of rejection. And when I finally broke through to the other side, there was no applause, no safety net just me, standing in a light I’d carved out of my own pain.
I made it out. Alone.
Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. And now, standing in this hard-earned sunlight, I see the strength it took to get here. I see the girl who refused to stay buried.
No one saved me.
And because of that, no one can take this survival from me.
To anyone still in that dark space: I know it feels endless. I know it feels lonely. But you are capable of pulling yourself up, piece by piece. And when you do, you’ll realize you’ve been your own savior all along.
