For the One Whose Childhood Still Echoes

☕ Coffee on the Rabbit Trail | Off Topic, On Purpose Blog Series

Post 12: “For the One Whose Childhood Still Echoes”

Maybe you didn’t have the kind of childhood they write books about.
Maybe love didn’t look like soft bedtime stories or safe hands or warm kitchen laughter.
Maybe home was a place you learned to leave — first in your heart, and later with your feet.

Maybe one parent just couldn’t stay.
Not because they didn’t love you, but because something in them broke in a way that made staying impossible.
And maybe another stayed too long…
With words that cut.
With anger that burned.
With wounds they passed down, not knowing how to carry their own.

I won’t pretend to know your whole story —
but if parts of your childhood still sit heavy on your chest,
if you're still learning how to unlearn what was called love but didn’t feel like it…
I want you to know something:

You are not broken.
You were never too hard to love.
And it wasn’t your job to fix them.

What happened wasn’t fair.
What you carried wasn’t light.
And yet — here you are.

Breathing.
Healing.
Growing something new out of soil that tried to bury you.

Maybe now, you’ve found people who choose you.
People who stay.
People who say “I love you” and mean it in a way that makes you feel whole instead of hollow.

Maybe you’ve built a family from scratch — through marriage, through friendship, through the way you show up for your own children with gentleness they’ll never have to unlearn.

Or maybe you’re still waiting for that.
Still healing.
Still learning to believe you’re worth safe love and soft landings.

Wherever you are — I want you to know:

What you didn’t get does not define who you are.
Your pain is valid, but it is not your identity.
You are allowed to grieve.
And you are allowed to outgrow the story you were born into.

You are not your past.
You are your becoming.

And it’s okay now.
Or at least — it will be.

You're not alone.
You're not forgotten.
And you're not too late for the love you’ve always deserved.