Do You Remember, Little Girl?

Author’s note: I’ve been dwelling on the question I asked all of you for the past week. I kept turning it around, hoping the answer would reveal itself easily. It didn’t. It stayed hidden longer than any other question I have asked myself before.

Yesterday I cried. Not the kind of crying that comes with noise, but the quiet kind that leaves your body feeling emptied out, as if something inside you has finally loosened its grip.

This morning, my hands began writing before my mind had time to question it.

This is my response to the prompt I shared with you in my subscribers chat.

Do you remember, little girl, your babysitter used to feed you in the elevator, pressing every floor to make you eat while you were distracted by your own giggles?

She would take you to a green field right in front of your apartment. You ran after sheep, your body meeting the soft grass, your gaze facing the blue sky.

Later you could not decide which one would be your favourite colour, blue or green. You wanted it to perfectly represent who you are.

Blue was freedom, reminding you of the countless horizons in the sky.

That day you chose blue. Perfection became the measure of your life, giving up freedom and imprisoning yourself in your own mind.

Do you remember the shouting, little girl, when your babysitter accidentally dropped a burning coal on your throat?

Your mom came later and screamed at the woman who was responsible.

You still carry its mark.

The one on your throat and the one in your heart.

The subtle feeling of being chosen by the person you loved the most only when you cried.

Later your mother started taking you to kindergarten at the age of two.

You would cry endlessly until she pointed out the fluffy Michelin Man on the side of the road.

You glanced at your mother while a thin ribbon of sunshine touched her blonde hair, turning it into gold.

Your eyes carried both happiness and sorrow.

A month ago, your mother came to visit you in London, telling you her biggest regret was leaving you at kindergarten a year after you learned how to walk.

“It is okay, mother. I know you needed to work.”

But your words did not soothe her.

Your mother told you she cannot even cry anymore.

Do you know who you want to be, little girl?

Someone who does not carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. Not suffocating under thousands of roles, growing estranged from your own world, going numb instead of devastated.

You couldn’t save your mother, but it isn’t too late for you.

Do you remember, little girl, you wanted to be your sister?

Her voice echoing from a distance each time you craved chocolate.

“Look at Elena Gilbert. She is so simple but guys are all around her because she is thin. Don’t you want to be like her?”

You took that as an order, starving yourself in high school. Then you got sick, unable to study for your university entrance exams.

Do you remember, little girl, the fear of not granting yourself the scholarship for the university you had always dreamed of? The quiet tightening in your chest, like the air in the room had suddenly grown heavier?

Each breath felt borrowed, thin, uncertain, like trying to breathe through water.

That was your dream because your sister studied there.

You watched her melting away, blaming everyone else for her disappointments.

She never blamed herself for disappointing you. She had always been the one who gave you your dreams and took them away from you.

Blue still is your favorite color, but your lungs are far from filling with fresh air.

Do you remember, little girl, you wrote a Harry Potter story in fifth grade? Your father was so proud he got it framed.

I know you still remember the smile on his face every time he mentioned it to someone. The sight was addictive. You pledged to put that smile on his face every day.

Years later he is sitting on your couch in London. Words are falling from his lips, but the recurring whispers grow louder as he speaks until you cannot hear him anymore while your thoughts shout at you,

“Your father does not believe in you. You are a failure.”

What if you’re a disappointment like your sisters?

The evening after your bachelor’s graduation, you went to dinner with your family, but one of your sisters was missing, somewhere with some junkies.

Your other sister finally told your father what was going on.

You saw his devastation in his tiny gestures. The way he bent over to reach for the button that fell from his shirt. The slowness of his movements, the way his eyes were filled with tears.

There was no button on the floor.

You stopped calling that junkie your sister the day you heard she slapped your mother.

Yet you feared the gaze that could someday wait for you in every mirror, the kind that hunted for escape, dilated with hunger rather than wonder.

Your nervous system pulled the emergency brake. The body that once chased pleasure suddenly set its own limit, leaving you to wonder whether it had saved you or simply changed the direction of your fall.

Shame wrapped itself around you in every corner when you tried to take two steps forward.

Shame did not arrive then, little girl.

It was always there. Even when you healed.

Enough.

Let it go.

Let the remnants of your old life that you kept holding on to reunite with your own illumination.

Plant that new seed of hope for life, for the self waiting to emerge.

The person I want you to become is someone who is proud of herself. Proud of her illness, proud of the mistakes she has made. Proud of failing an exam, proud of crying everywhere.

A person who eats what she craves without feeling guilty. A person who puts herself first instead of carrying everyone else’s shit.

A person who knows that a kind of love exists that does not ask to be searched for.

A person who shows up for herself every day messy, chaotic and imperfect.

Someone who allows her fears to exist and lets joy follow.

To love and accept all that is.

To demand nothing from life, only to accept what lies within your power with faith and surrender.

The greatest love story ever destined to last has always been the journey you have been on.

You are both the secret and the source, the question and its answer.

Blue is your favourite colour.

Copyright © 2026 İmge Tekniker. All rights reserved.

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