to the women inside me i still grieve

there are women inside me i still grieve.

there are versions of me i miss so deeply it feels physical.

the girl who believed love would always feel safe if she loved hard enough.

the teenager who confused attention with worth because nobody had taught her the difference yet.

the young woman who thought exhaustion was achievement.

the version of me before motherhood cracked my heart open permanently.

the version before betrayal.
before lawyers.
before hospitals.
before words like biopsy and diagnosis and custody schedules became part of my daily vocabulary.

sometimes grief is not about death.

sometimes grief is mourning the selves you did not get to remain.

i think women experience this constantly.

we shed identities so quietly people rarely acknowledge the loss.

the woman before children.
the woman before divorce.
the woman before illness.
before heartbreak.
before survival hardened certain edges.
before life taught you how quickly innocence can become hypervigilance.

and the strange thing is some of those women deserved better from me too.

i spent years mocking old versions of myself in order to survive becoming someone new.

calling myself naïve.
dramatic.
too emotional.
too trusting.
too soft.

but lately i look back at those women differently.

with tenderness.

because every version of me was trying.

even the messy ones.
even the loud ones.
even the insecure ones.
even the woman who stayed too long.
even the woman who loved people who could not hold her properly.
even the woman who mistook being needed for being cherished.

especially her.

there are women inside me who survived things nobody fully saw.

women who smiled through devastation.
women who performed wellness convincingly.
women who carried entire worlds while quietly unraveling.
women who adapted so thoroughly they forgot what they actually needed.

i honor them now.

not because they were perfect.
not because they always chose correctly.
not because suffering automatically makes someone wise.

but because they kept going.

and i think healing begins the moment we stop speaking about our former selves like they were embarrassing strangers we outgrew and start recognizing them as women who carried us here the best way they knew how.

there are women inside me i still grieve.

but there are women inside me i am finally beginning to love too.