12/25/2025
“To the child who learned the Script”
Little one—
I see you now,
not as you learned to appear,
but as you were
before vigilance became your language.
You learned early
that love had weather.
That safety depended on tone,
footsteps, the way a door closed.
You learned to read faces
the way other children learned to read books.
You memorized moods.
You anticipated storms.
You became adaptable
before you became authentic.
No one told you
that a child is not meant to manage a household of emotions.
No one intervened
when deceit bent the rules of truth,
when abuse taught you that silence
was a survival skill.
So you grew up quickly—
not because you wanted to,
but because you had to.
You became a script.
You became agreeable, alert, contained.
You became whatever kept the peace.
And I want you to know this first:
None of that was your failure.
None of that was your fault.
I am the adult you became—
and I carry tools now.
Not weapons.
Tools.
I have language for what happened.
I have frameworks and diagnoses
that finally tell the truth.
I know what hypervigilance is.
I know what parentification does to a nervous system.
I know why your body never forgot.
I also know how to sit with pain
without abandoning myself.
I know how to slow a breath,
how to ask the right questions,
how to stay when things get uncomfortable.
I offer you intention
where there was once chaos.
Intervention
where there was once neglect.
Curiosity
where there was once blame.
I do not rush you anymore.
I do not force resilience.
I let you unfold at your own pace.
You are no longer required
to perform for love.
You are no longer responsible
for managing someone else’s wounds.
You get to be real now.
Even messy.
Even unsure.
We rose—
not untouched,
but intact.
From ashes of deceit,
from the weight of growing too fast,
from the quiet grief
of never being fully seen—
we rose with empathy instead of hardness,
with discernment instead of fear.
And before I close,
there is one more truth I want you to hold—
You were not alone.
Your sister—
just sixteen months ahead of you—
walked the same terrain,
felt the same cold seasons,
shared the same unspoken understanding.
This Christmas,
I hold you both in gentleness.
Two children who survived,
two souls who carried light through shadow.
May peace rest where vigilance once lived.
May truth replace the script.
And may the love born in that small, shared beginning
finally feel safe to come home.
