What I Would Tell the Little Girl in the Photo
I found this photo recently.
It's me, the summer of 1976- 50 years ago. I remember this day as if it were yesterday. I am at Lake Perris in Southern California with my family. I remember that brick red bikini. I am holding on tightly to a kiddie raft that I am attempting to float on, grinning like I don't have a care in the world.
I almost didn't post it. Because I know what was happening in that little girl's world that the camera couldn't see.
I was the youngest of three, born eight and ten years behind my siblings. I learned early on that my birth wasn’t planned; that I was an accident. It isn’t that my mom didn’t want me; it's that she probably felt her family was finished after having my older brother and sister. She and my dad both worked, so they moved in her alcoholic mother to help raise me. My grandmother, Marty, did her best and did make me feel loved. This attachment to my grandmother exacerbated the sibling rivalry between my siblings and me. My siblings didn’t care much about me and resorted to cruel teasing and bullying. Before I was old enough to understand what was happening, I had already absorbed the message that I was too much trouble, too much to deal with, too much — full stop.
And then came the voice. You know the one. You are a bad person. You are spoiled. You are a brat. You are unworthy. Why were you even born?
That voice started early. And it got louder. By the time I started kindergarten, the neighbor child molester had his way with me. I hated school and struggled miserably. I suspect the struggles with school had something to do with my undiagnosed ADHD. Then, at 15, I was raped in my own neighborhood while walking my childhood friend home. By the time I was old enough to start making choices about my life, I had a running internal monologue that told me I was destined for exactly what I had been handed: struggle, scarcity, and dysfunction.
I looked at this photo for a long time before I wrote this.
And I thought: what would I tell her?
Today is my birthday, so I am posting this to celebrate the little girl in the photo. Tricia -Circa 1976 at Lake Perris, CA.
I would tell her: that smile is the truth. The voice is a lie.
That inner critic — the one that said you were unworthy, unwanted, too much? It was never yours. You inherited it the way you inherit furniture. Someone put it in the house before you arrived. It doesn't belong to you. You do not have to keep it.
I would tell her: what happened to you is not your identity.
The things done to you — by circumstance, by people who should have protected you, by a world that didn't see you clearly — those things happened. They are real. You don't have to pretend they weren't. But they are not the sentence. They are not the whole story. They are the opening chapter of a story that goes somewhere else entirely.
I would tell her: do not become small.
The shame will try to shrink you. It will tell you to hide what happened, to never speak of it, to take up less space so no one asks questions. It will dress itself up as humility, or politeness, or keeping the peace. It is none of those things. Shame is a cage. And you were not built for a cage. What happened to you was not your fault. You do not owe anyone your silence. You do not have to disappear to make other people comfortable. Take up space. Use your voice. Stay big.
I would tell her: the wanting is right.
That thing you feel — that deep, persistent knowing that you were built for something more than this — that is not arrogance. That is not ingratitude. That is your compass. Do not let anyone take it from you. Do not silence it to make people more comfortable. Follow it. It will take you somewhere.
I would tell her: you are going to build something real.
Not because it was handed to you. Not because anyone believed in you first. But because you are going to decide to. You are going to be 29 years old, alone, raising four kids, driving a forklift at Lowe's — and you are going to decide that is not the end of the story. You are going to become educated. You are going to have a worthy career. You are going to build a $900,000 a-year business. You are going to own a real estate portfolio. You are going to help other women do the same.
You are going to become someone little girls look at and think: if she can do it, maybe I can too.
I would tell her: action cures fear.
Not waiting until you feel ready. Not white-knuckling it until the voice shuts up. You are going to learn that the only way through is through — that confidence is built on the other side of the doing. Every time you take the action you are afraid to take, the voice gets a little quieter. Not silent, maybe. But quieter.
I was not born into the life I live now.
I was born into struggle and dysfunction, into a house that told me I wasn't wanted, into a neighborhood that wasn't safe. The cards were not good.
But here's what I know now that I wish I could have told that little girl in the brown bikini: the cards you are dealt are not the game. They are just where you start.
You get to decide where you go.
And that little girl — the one with the paper boat and the big smile — she already knew it. She was already grinning like she had somewhere to be.
She did.
She does.
If this landed for you, I'd love to hear your story. Drop it in the comments. And if you're standing where I once stood — at the beginning of something you're not sure you're allowed to want — let's talk. That's exactly what I do.
