11/21/2025
The Innocent
Two photographs I keep close.
One of the “me” with bright eyes, clipped bangs, and a face full of unfiltered trust.
And one of me looking back through time.
When life feels heavy and responsibilities stack, when my breath shortens and my heart gets pulled in too many directions, I look at that little girl.
The me who once moved through the world without a single understanding of stress. She reminds me.
She reminds me of mornings when waking up felt like an adventure. Of days when wonder wasn’t something to practice—it was simply the air I breathed.
Of the purity and unbroken trust that lived in my bones before I even knew it had a name. Of the quiet depth of knowing I carried without trying. That intuitive wisdom that’s still the truest part of me.
She knows how to return to joy. She knows the way back to presence, curiosity, play, and wild imagination. She knows the secret of innocence where nothing is complicated, and everything is whole.
I still feel her…”me”
Not as someone I’ve outgrown, but as the part of me that has never left.
She’s my best self.
The one who hasn’t been shaped by obligations, expectations, achievements.
The one who remembers how to rest in wonder.
The one who trusts the unseen.
The one who loves fiercely without hesitation.
She’s still here.
Behind my smile, inside my breath, in the quiet space where intuition lives.
Maybe that’s the gift of age:
we return to who we were before the world told us who to be.
So today, I look at these two photos side by side.The child and the elder. Both me. Still me. The beginning and the becoming.And I honor both.
I honor the girl who knew joy without reason. I honor the woman who is still learning. I honor the thread of innocence that has carried me through every season of my life.
We never lose our essence…we continually rediscover it.
Find a picture of the little one you once were and look into those eyes. Let it remind you of the wonder you came from, and the wonder that still lives inside .
