Dear daughters,

I’m Mama.
And I’m writing all of this for you, because this used to be the place where I hide when I needed space, in the silence of words that somehow spoke to me loudly.

By the time you read this, you’ve probably reached an age where life starts throwing bricks at you. And you’ve started wondering why life isn’t as kind as it was when you were little. Why these headaches come and go, and why life keeps pushing you to think, to solve, to understand things you’re not sure you’re ready for.

It’s okay.
I’ve been there.

So,
You know me now as your mother, the one who picks you up from school, cooking your food, and prepares your to school.
But before that,
I was once a girl, constantly being reshaped, and shaped, and reshaped.

Just like a book, going back and forth between the editor and the author.

still, In all the years to come, in every future I quietly pray for,
I hope I’m still there, I’m still reshaped, to be able to fit in each of your journeys,
right beside you, just like this.

nevertheless,
I was also a girl.
A girl in my 20s.
Living a very different reality than the one we know at home.

Still, I carry on so many stories, pieces of myself you’ve never known.
I’ve had broken hearts I tried so hard to mend.
I had friend, beautiful friends, good friends.
You know them now as your aunties,
those are the people that stayed before you are, and even after you.

even when I couldn’t reach them back, when you are babies. and even when I was busy with your doctors appointment. they are keeping up with me, in whatever way they could. the zoom call, the chat, the reels.

I want to share all of these feelings with you.
Maybe one day, you’ll go through them too.
And I’m sure women my age have felt them,
each in their own bold, beautiful way.

these are Pieces of me I want to pass on to you,
to my readers,
to every moms out there,
those of us at home,
caught between raising families
and raising ourselves into adulthood.

I think many mothers agreed that, we love our children with every beating heart of ours, but, indeed, No one warned us that being a parent often means losing the version of yourself you once recognized. It’s a phase of transition, carefully picking up the old parts of you, choosing which ones to keep, and which ones to let go. And with everything you leave behind, there’s always a trace of you that lingers in distant memories. It’s real. It happened.

And maybe sometimes, you reconnect with those pieces. And in that, you discover the you that was, and the you that is, are both trying to find a place in this ever-changing life.

So I put them into little letters.
Call them poetry, if you like.
Call them letters, if you prefer.

They are pieces,
visions of feelings
that may belong to all of us.

And we call it life.

The life we’ve lived,
and still choose to cherish.

Between broken hearts,
hope that quietly fading,
excitement,
and disappointment,

and everything in between.