Your One Job
A letter to the little girl I'm still learning to protect.
You know that AI caricature trend that’s been everywhere lately?
I did it. And when the image came back, I saw her a little version of me, looking back at me through a screen.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Not in a therapy-speak, inner-child kind of way. Just in this very quiet, very real way. Like she had something to say. Like maybe I owed her a conversation.
Then I remembered something someone once said — that your one job in this life is to take care of yourself. Not your kids. Not your clients. Not your community. Yourself.
And I thought… have I been doing that? Have I been taking care of her?
Your one job is to take care of her. To love her. To guard her heart. To uplift her.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my younger self. Not in the cliché “inner child” kind of way but in a very real, emotional, almost grieving kind of way. The kind where you look at old photos and suddenly realize that little girl had no idea what life would eventually ask of her.
She had no idea how much strength she would need. How much heartbreak she would survive. How many times she would have to rebuild herself.
And yet somehow, she trusted life anyway.
When I look at photos of her now, I don’t see someone naïve. I see someone soft. Open. Hopeful. Someone who believed love was supposed to feel safe. Someone who thought adulthood meant freedom. Someone who didn’t yet know how quickly the world can try to harden you.
And I wonder sometimes — if she could sit across from me today, what would she ask?
I don’t think she would ask if I became successful enough. I don’t think she would ask how many followers I have, how much money I made, or whether people admire me.
Children don’t measure life that way.
I think she would ask softer questions. More honest ones.
Did we stay kind?
Did we keep dreaming?
Did we become the kind of woman we needed?
Did we learn how to rest?
Did we stop apologizing for taking up space?
Did we find people who love us gently?
Did you protect me?
That last one breaks me the most.
Because somewhere along the way, many of us learned how to perform, achieve, produce, nurture, lead, and carry everyone else — while quietly abandoning ourselves. We became women who know how to show up for everyone except the little girl inside us.
And I think healing is, in many ways, returning to her.
Not returning to childhood. Not romanticizing the past. But returning to the parts of ourselves that were buried underneath survival. The softness. The wonder. The creativity. The joy. The intuition. The version of us that existed before the world convinced us we had to earn love through performance.
If my younger self were watching me now, I don’t think she would shame me for the detours. I don’t think she would judge me for the relationships that broke me, the seasons where I felt lost, or the moments I doubted myself.
I think she would look at me with compassion.
She would probably say:
Please stop being so hard on yourself.
Rest more. Laugh more. Trust yourself.
Stop shrinking your voice.
Keep writing. Keep creating. Keep becoming.
Take care of yourself the way you take care of everyone else.
Because the truth is — the older I get, the more I realize success means very little if you lose yourself in the process of achieving it. There is no accomplishment that can replace peace. No title that can replace joy. No productivity that can replace being fully alive.
Part of becoming an adult is realizing nobody is coming to rescue the younger version of you.
You become the safe place. You become the protector. You become the voice that says: I’ve got you now.
And maybe that’s what healing really is. Not becoming someone entirely new — but finally becoming the person your younger self needed all along.
I hope she would be proud of me. Not because I became perfect. But because despite everything life has asked of me, I’m still trying to live with heart.
And maybe that’s enough
This season 🌿
Gloria