Dear Me

Dear Diary,

‎Do you remember that year in primary school when Miss Lizzy scolded me so badly I cried my eyes out all because one boy in class wrote that he liked me?

‎And that day in secondary school when my form mistress embarrassed me because I used lip gloss and powder to school?

‎Yeah, I had just gotten into SS3.

‎A wonderful day that was.

‎Well, I hate to break it to you, nobody ever warned me that surviving girlhood would feel like learning how to disappear politely.

‎I was told to sit properly, cross my legs, smile small, and speak like a girl, especially with my big voice.

‎They told me that men are dangerous.

‎Yo! That’s one lesson they never stopped preaching, and probably never will.

‎That good girls keep their heads low and their skirts long.

‎They said the world is not safe for us girls, but they forgot to tell me that sometimes, the danger lives quietly inside me self-doubt, silence, and the fear of being too much.

‎I grew up in a small town where every adult felt responsible for your future.

‎Aunties would say, “Don’t play too rough, boys won’t like that.”

‎Or, “You play too much for a girl, go inside!”

‎Our church leader would say, “A virtuous girl doesn’t raise her voice. She covers herself up.”

‎Even my teachers measured confidence as pride.

‎So I learned to be careful.

‎No, not wise. Just to be careful.

‎Careful not to offend my elders, not to dream beyond my means, not to be noticed too much.

‎I was told I was already naturally flashy as it is , adornment would attract the wrong people.

‎So I became an expert at hiding until hiding became my identity.

‎Nobody ever said that this kind of safety would cost me myself.

‎I wish someone did.

‎By the time I was 17, I was already an expert at being small.

‎I said “sorry” before speaking.

‎I smiled when I was uncomfortable.

‎I apologized for things that weren’t my fault.

‎I thought being liked was the same thing as being loved.

‎And honestly, it’s even hard to tell the difference these days.

‎When life began to happen, heartbreaks (girl, nobody warned me about that one), rejections, failures... I realized I had no tools to fight back.

‎I had only ever been trained to survive, not to live.

‎And guess what?

‎The same people who told me to “stay quiet” now said, “Why are you so timid?”

‎The same world that applauded my humility now called me weak.

‎Nobody warned me about that contradiction , that girlhood can mean learning how to please everyone but yourself.

‎They warned me about boys, but not about people-pleasing.

‎They warned me about love, but not about losing myself trying to earn it.

‎They warned me about shame, but not about the weight of perfectionism.

‎Sometimes, I wonder if the world even knows what it does to girls.

‎We raise them to fear men instead of teaching men to be safe.

‎We teach them to obey instead of teaching them to think.

‎We tell them to be good not kind to themselves, but good for everyone else.

‎And yet we wonder why grown women battle insecurity, anxiety, and silence.

‎I’ll tell you why,

‎Because nobody ever taught us that we could exist loudly without being “too much.”

‎I think about all the times I said “I’m fine” when I wasn’t.

‎All the times I stayed because leaving would make me “disrespectful.”

‎All the dreams I buried because they didn’t “fit” the kind of woman I was supposed to be.

‎Now I’m unlearning , tho slowly, painfully, but beautifully.

‎Learning that my confidence is not arrogance.

‎That boundaries are not rebellion.

‎That grace and strength can exist in the same body.

‎That my worth isn’t tied to how safe I make others feel.

‎And I pray we learn to forgive ourselves for the mistakes, the men, and the moments we let in when we didn’t yet know our worth.

‎Because if we never forgive that girl we once were, we’ll never see who we’re still becoming.

‎I look at little girls walking to school with beautiful colors in their hair, smiles as bright as the sun and I wonder if they’ll also grow up learning to hide before they bloom.

‎Dear Diary,

‎Although the world forgot to warn me, I’m warning the next girl , the one still learning how to hold herself together while everyone tells her who to be.

‎You are not fragile.

‎You are not a lesson in modesty.

‎You are the story the world didn’t expect to rewrite itself.

‎So when they tell you to be careful, remember that careful doesn’t mean small.

‎Be careful, yes. But be courageous too.

‎Because the world doesn’t change for quiet girls.

‎It changes because of the ones who finally found their voices.

‎This piece was born from the beautiful moments between who I was taught to be and who I’m finally becoming.

‎So it’s for every girl who learned to hide herself just to fit the frame society built for her and for every woman now learning to take up space without apology.

‎Writing this reminded me that girlhood isn’t something you outgrow; it’s something you heal from. And healing begins when we start talking and when we stop being the “good girl” and start being our own kind of woman.

‎To every girl reading this , you are not a warning

Darling, you are a wonder.

Happy International Day of the Girl Child