She Has Me Now

When I was writing my memoir, there was a lot of focus on editing, publishing, Amazon, marketing, podcasts—all the things that come with putting a book into the world. But this second book is different.

Somewhere along the way, my perspective shifted. 

The writing itself is the medicine. 

Writing the memoir was mostly about understanding the woman I became. This book is forcing me to sit beside the little girl who became that woman. It's a much harder place to be.

This book doesn’t just feel heavier—it is heavier. I’m not creating or inventing characters. I’m writing about my own life. I’m reconstructing memories that my nervous system spent decades stuffing down.

Every time I write a scene, it’s like I’m asking my brain to reopen a file that got shoved to the back for decades. 

Still, I keep going back—not because it’s enjoyable, but because it’s unfinished.

And there’s that pull again.

This all just happened, eh! I never planned any of this. It’s like—well, not like, it is—I was divinely picked up off the path I was on and placed on this one. No doubt about it.

These books they’re non-negotiable.

They have to happen.

Healing doesn’t mean you stop feeling the sadness. I think it means the memories stop owning you, and for me, they’re becoming chapters instead of cages. 

I can see her now. For years, I was that little girl in many ways—reacting from her wounds without realizing it. Now I’m looking at her with the eyes of an adult.

That’s what this book really is. Not revenge, not exposure, not even redemption. It’s witnessing.

I’m giving that little girl something she didn’t have back then—someone who believes her, understands her, and doesn’t look away. 

Whether a million people read it or ten, this process has extreme value all by itself. I’m no longer seeing these events through the eyes of the child I was—I’m seeing them through the eyes of the woman I’ve become.

And that's where the healing is. 

As a child, I didn't have the comprehension, language, or power to process what was happening. I normalized what I was exposed to because I had to make sense of it all.

As an adult looking back, I see things completely differently. Things that once felt confusing, were dismissed as “just the way it was,” or were impossible to name make a whole lot more sense now.

Adults explain. Children absorb.

I'm grieving two people at once—the child who lived through it and the woman who is only now realizing the full weight of what that little girl carried.

When I say, “I can see her now,” I’m not reliving the past. I’m finally able to witness it truthfully.

That doesn’t make the memories easier—it actually makes them harder. I’m not protecting myself anymore with the ways I learned to survive.

But there’s another side to that realization. I’m not that little girl anymore. She had to navigate those moments with a child’s understanding. I don’t.

As I write, I’m bringing adult compassion, discernment, and voice into memories where none of those things existed. I’m not changing what happened, but I am changing who has the final say about what it meant.

I think that’s why writing this book feels so different from my memoir. The memoir asked, “How did I survive?” This book is asking, “What actually happened to that little girl?” 

I can see clearly what I didn’t understand or want to acknowledge back then. I’m looking back with knowledge, wisdom, and grace. I’m bearing witness to my own childhood with self-compassion.

Instead of judging that little girl or asking why she didn’t understand, I’m beginning to recognize the reality of what she experienced, and that recognition is replacing confusion and self-blame with clarity.

Every chapter isn’t just a memory—it’s an opportunity for the woman I am today to be there for the little girl I once was. 

I think something inside me finally stopped arguing with what I already knew.

I’m no longer asking, “Was it really that bad?” or “Maybe I’m exaggerating.” I’m saying, “I see what happened.”

The memoir was about telling my story. This book is asking me to stand beside the little girl who stood alone.

It’s painful—heartbreaking. 

These books aren’t being written to sell. They are simply the by-product of where this journey has led me.

For years, I remembered my childhood from inside it. Now I’m remembering it from the outside, and for the first time, I can see what she couldn't.

I’m not interested in making my story bigger than it is or smaller than it is. I just want to tell the truth. I’m not trying to create a dramatic story—I’m trying to understand a real one. 

Today felt like a turning point for me. Not because I figured it all out, but because I stopped looking at my childhood only through the eyes of the child who survived it. I let the adult woman I’ve become into the room.

She doesn’t need rescuing now—she needed that then. What she needs now, what she has now—is a witness. Someone who believes her. Someone who doesn’t minimize what happened to her.

I cried so hard today—not because I became weaker, but because for the first time, I could be there for the little girl I once was.