An Apology To The Little Girl Still Living Inside My Silence

The other day, I found an old photograph of myself — I must have been about nine. It was from a little photo shoot I did as a girl, back when I was trying to find an agent to continue being in commercials and pursue modeling.

I remember being so excited that day — my grandmother had bought me clothes, my mom had done my hair, and I felt cared for, so excited, and hopeful for what this new venture would bring to my life.

I found myself staring at this photo for a long time, and I couldn’t look away. My smile was so pure then, so untouched. Instantly there was an ache in my soul, because I couldn’t remember the last time I smiled like that — with that kind of lightness.

There was shimmer in my eyes — that can only exist in children who still believe life is kind. And I cried. Because I remembered that little girl. I remembered what she was dreaming about, what she believed the world to be. And I remembered how quickly everything changed.

How hands that should have protected her didn't. How silence became her language. How the light in her eyes slowly dimmed under the weight of things no child should ever carry.

I realized — I’ve never really apologized to her. I never came back for her. Instead, I kept running in the opposite direction, trying to make it different, trying to make it better. I'm still trapped today in this cycle thinking that if I could change the story now, maybe the old one would be erased.

But the truth is — you always remember. No matter what changes, It's always there, living quietly inside you, until you face it.

So, this is for her.

Dear Little Me,

I found you today.

Nine years old, in an old black and white photograph, smiling like the world was made for you.

You didn’t know yet that it wasn’t safe — that people can harm what they’re meant to protect, that love can disappear without explanation, that innocence can be taken and never returned the same.

You were so small. Too small to make sense of the pain that came after. Too small to understand that what happened was never your fault. Too small to carry so much — and yet, somehow, you did.

I wanted to climb into that photo and pull you out — to take your hand, to run somewhere safe, somewhere soft, where you could still laugh without fear.

I wanted to tell you that I’d grow up and take care of you. But I didn’t.

I let fear win. I let pain and trauma define us.

And now, here I am — fifty-one, almost fifty-two — still scared, still anxious, still broken in places I can’t name.

The truth is, I don’t have it all together. I wake up most mornings trying to convince myself I’m not failing at life. I pray to God every day to show me how to live because I still don’t fully know how.

I wish I could tell you it got better. That we became everything you dreamed of being. But the truth is, we didn’t.

The truth is, I lost us somewhere along the way. No— the real truth is, I lost us more and more, every day. And yet, even now, when I look at you — at that photo — I see something in your eyes that I still need: hope. That wild, innocent, unbroken hope.

Maybe you never left. Maybe you’ve just been waiting for me to come back for you. Maybe healing isn’t about pretending we’ve got it all figured out — maybe it’s about finally coming home to the little girl we abandoned to survive.

Perhaps that’s why I keep looking back — reliving the past in my thoughts and dreams. Perhaps it’s not about regret, but about abandonment. Not just them of us. Not just the world of us. But me of you.

I’ve cried over us what feels like every day, because I could never give words or a voice to why. But no matter how much pain there’s been, or how many tears have been shed, what I failed to say is this:

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry that I left us there. I'm sorry that others were able to do what they wanted, say what they wanted, take what they wanted — and still do, without consequence to us. But what I’m most sorry for is that I’ve continued to let it go on this way. We deserved more.

So I’m here now. Late, but here.

And I don’t have the answers. But I have now have the will to try.

I have the courage and strength to fight for you — for us.

To make something good out of what’s left. To learn to love you, even if I still don’t fully know how to finally stop apologizing for surviving.

I can’t rewrite what happened, but I can promise you this — from this day on, I will try to make this life gentler for us.

I will try to rest. To heal. To forgive. To finally give you the peace you never had.

That’s all I can promise right now.

But it’s real.

And it’s the beginning — not of perfection, not of closure — but of me finally showing up for you.

She never left. She was just waiting — in the quiet, in the ache, in the light that still flickers beneath the pain — for me to remember her name.

"She believed the world was kind — and that belief gives me the courage to find it again." - Gia Laurent