My inner child is delighted. It’s 3 a.m., and here I am eating Captain Crunch in bed while writing. It feels like proof that I can shape my future, even in small, whimsical ways.
The key isn’t in trying to become something else. It’s in remembering who I’ve always been. If my 10-year-old self knew I could stay up late, eating cereal in bed with no rules but my own, she’d feel safe. She’d know that I hadn’t let the world take me away from myself.
But part of me is still afraid—afraid of losing that freedom again to the demands and mandates of society. I can feel the tug to conform, to become something smaller, more controlled.
Tonight, though, I remind myself that I’m still here. Still wild. Still free in the ways that matter. And maybe that’s all I really need—to know that I don’t have to abandon the parts of myself that refuse to fit in.
It’s a quiet promise to my inner child: we’re going to be okay.