Echos of Insight

I cried myself to sleep last night.
Not out of confusion.
Not out of fear.
And not because I was asking myself what I should do.

I cried because I finally saw the full picture —
and I missed her.
Not the person she used to be,
but the little girl I now realize I always knew was there.

It hit me in flashes.
Quick, aching scenes from her childhood —
the way she’d push back,
the spark in her eyes when she did something bold,
the moments I thought she was being defiant
when really,
she was just trying to breathe.

“Mama, can I have something that smells like you?”

I won’t ever forget that.
And now, all these years later,
that longing has turned around in me.
Now I’m the one wishing for something that smells like her —
something to hold on to.
Something that wraps me in the comfort of her being —
now that she finally gets to be.

When She Was Little

She was wild in the best way —
uncontainable, curious,
moving with instinct
and never asking for permission.

Even as a baby,
she refused anything that tried to confine her.
Hated being swaddled.
Hated being put down.
She needed motion, freedom, her own rhythm.

And from the very beginning,
I was trying to figure out
how to hold her without holding her back.

The Houdini nickname came early.
As a toddler, she didn’t just wiggle in her car seat —
she’d get her entire top half out,
no matter how tightly I secured the straps.

I took her to the fire station,
not just to check the seat installation,
but to make sure I was fastening it correctly.

They confirmed everything was done right…
and then I asked them to watch.
Sure enough, she slipped right out.
Their faces said it all.

She was something else.

At three,
she left the house during what was supposed to be naptime
and walked a block barefoot
until she found a boy playing basketball.
His dad brought her home —
using her directions.

That same year,
she started climbing out the window.
Once, her uncle told her she couldn’t go outside.
Minutes later, she was waving to him
from the other side of the back door.

Then there was the night I’ll never forget.
She was four.
It was close to midnight.

I woke to the sound of police knocking on the open door,
asking if everyone was okay.
They said the front door was open,
the car outside had its headlights on,
windshield wipers going,
trunk wide open.

I couldn’t make sense of it —
until I walked outside
and saw all of her stuffed animals
buckled carefully into every seat,
blankets and all.

She had dragged a barstool from the kitchen
to reach the key hook,
unlocked the front door,
and let herself out.

I stood there in the dark,
watching this scene she had created —
all her little friends loaded up, ready to go somewhere —
and the whiplash of terror, disbelief,
and overwhelming love
when I found her scared
and hiding in the bathroom
hit me all at once.

By five,
she was riding her bike through the neighborhood,
making friends anywhere and everywhere.

It didn’t matter if she’d never been down a particular street before —
she’d hop off her bike,
walk into the yard like she lived there,
and by the time I found her,
she was already back at home.

She was magnetic.
She followed her energy.

She scared me.
Not because she was bad —
but because she was beyond me.
And I didn’t know how to mother that.

I was afraid to go to sleep after that.
I felt like I couldn’t turn my back for a second.
And the only advice I kept getting was to control her.
Rein her in. Tighten up. Fix it.

So that’s what I tried to do.
Everyone said it was on me.
And control was the only thing I had left.

School Years

She started out excited for kindergarten —
until it came time for me to leave.

She panicked.
Bit me on the leg.
Screamed until her teacher
gently coaxed her inside.

We laugh about it now.
She’s told me plainly:

“I just didn’t like the classroom.”

And honestly,
that tracks.

Middle school came with its own weight.
Her dad had pulled her from school
for a couple of years to homeschool,
and when she reentered the system,
she felt behind.

She was hard on herself
and told me she felt stupid
compared to her classmates.

But she caught up —
and eventually,
she surpassed them
in ways that mattered most.

By high school,
she turned inward.

Still funny,
still magnetic,
but her energy shifted.

She made close friends online
through gaming,
rather than spending time
with school peers.

The rules, the disengagement, the apathy —
it wore her down.

At the beginning of her junior year,
she told me she wanted to drop out
and get her GED.

I told her she had to finish the semester;
really, I was just buying time.
I wasn’t ready to let go.

But she didn’t let it drop.
She reminded me.
Held her ground.
And I began to shift too.

I signed the papers.
I let her go.
I wasn’t happy.
But I wasn’t going to choose
my comfort
over her clarity.

She’s always known what she wanted.

She always has.

The Shift

Through the years,
our bond was jagged.

I thought I needed to control her —
especially as the single parent I was then.
I thought that was what protection looked like.
It’s what I knew.

But now I know:

She wasn’t fighting me.

She was fighting for herself.

She didn’t have the words for it then,
but I can see it clearly now —
the inner storm she lived through,
trying to reconcile the outside world
with the truth she carried inside.

I wondered if she’d been hurt.
I tried to make room for those conversations —
not to pry,
but to keep the door open.
To show her there was nothing she could say
that would make me love her any less.

But the space between us stayed quiet.
Not cold… just aching.

She shut down.
And I tried to accept it.

We both wanted connection —
we just didn’t know
how to reach each other
through the static.

I’d hit my limit
more times than I could count —
emotionally, physically, mentally —
trying to manage someone
who didn’t want to be managed.

And over time,
I started to realize:

Maybe she wasn’t the one who needed to change.

Maybe I was the one who needed to let go.

It didn’t happen all at once.
There wasn’t one defining moment.

Just quiet shifts —
hard-earned and sometimes painful —
that started to peel back
everything I’d been taught
about what it means
to be a “good parent.”

I started noticing
how often I was acting from fear.
Fear of getting it wrong.
Fear of being judged.
Fear of what people would say about me —
or about her.

Fear that if I didn’t control her,
something terrible would happen.
That she’d get hurt.
That I’d be blamed.
That the effects would ripple to my other kids.
That it would all come down on me.

But somewhere along the way,
I started listening differently.

I stopped reacting
and started observing.
I stopped asking, “How do I fix this?”
and started wondering:

“What is she trying to tell me with her resistance?”

“What am I refusing to hear?”

I began recognizing
that the story I was trying to uphold —
the one where kids are supposed to behave a certain way,
meet certain expectations,
make their parents proud
in a socially acceptable order —
wasn’t my story.

It was handed to me.
And it never fit.

And if it didn’t fit me…

how could I expect it to fit her?

I started letting go.
Not in the loud, heroic way
people think of
when they hear the word surrender,
but in quiet, unglamorous ways.

I stopped controlling every decision.
I stopped fighting every moment of tension.
I stopped trying to make her look
more “together” than she felt.
I stopped performing as the “good mom.”

Instead of forcing closeness,
I learned to create safety.
Instead of demanding honesty,
I made space for it.
Instead of holding her
to the version of her I thought she was supposed to be,
I allowed myself to wonder
about who she might actually be.

And slowly, something changed.

She still didn’t talk much.
She still kept things private.
But there was less resistance in the room.
There was air between us.

And I could feel
that something deep inside her was shifting —
not toward who I wanted her to become,
but toward who she already was.

It wasn’t rebellion.

It was alignment.

She had always known who she was.

She had just been waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

Letting Her Go

So when she told me
she wanted to move back in with her dad,
I didn’t stop her.

I had resisted it
when she first asked at sixteen.
But by the time school was behind her
and the papers were signed,
I had loosened my grip.

I knew she needed something different.

She moved about a month
after turning eighteen,
once everything on his end was ready.

And while I missed her
before she even left,
I also knew — deep down —
that the physical space
might finally soften the emotional one.

For the last few years,
she had mostly stayed away from the rest of us.
The tension in the house was constant.
Conversations were minimal.
Everyone was walking on eggshells,
and no one really knew why.

I didn’t want to control her anymore.

I just wanted peace —

for her, and for all of us.

So I let her go.
Not with anger.
Not with guilt.
Just with hope
that something better
could grow from the space between us.

And like before —
I thought the letting go
would be the hardest part.

But again,
the real shift came after.

When She Came Out

She didn’t hold back.

She labeled it.
She named it.
She told me she’s transgender.

She said she’d been feeling a lot —
overwhelmed, emotional —
but also honest.
Like she was finally letting herself be real.

And I didn’t feel shocked.
I didn’t panic or freeze or fall apart.

I felt… ready.

Because I was.

Acceptance didn’t come easy. It came before.

It came from years of doing my own work.
From learning to question what I’d been taught.
From sitting with hard truths
about what had been modeled for me —
and what I never wanted to pass on.

It came from watching her suffer,
and choosing not to meet her pain with fear.
It came from deciding — long ago —
that I would not be the parent
who needed my child to change
so I could feel okay.

It came from recognizing her as part of my soul tribe —

someone whose life and energy had always mirrored back to me

the parts of myself I wasn’t always able to name.

She reminds me of me.

And I knew that if I didn’t want her
to grow up feeling the way I did —
unseen, unheard, constantly misunderstood —
then I had to align myself.

Not someday.
Not when it was convenient.
Now.

Last night, as I lay in bed,
one memory hit harder than the rest:

“Mama, can I have something that smells like you?”

That wasn’t about scent.
That was about safety.
About wanting to feel close to me…
even before she had the words
to say what she needed most.

And now,
all I want is to hold her —
not who I thought she was, but who she’s finally allowed to be.

The orange nail polish at two.
The grin she couldn’t hide in the mirror.
Trying on my bra at three
and standing proudly to show me
when I got out of the shower.

Even the silence.
Even the distance.
Even the shutdown.

She didn’t need to be fixed.

She needed to be trusted.

She didn’t need more structure.

She needed sovereignty.

She didn’t need a map.

She needed room to make her own.

It all makes sense now.

She wasn’t rejecting us.
She was surviving.

She was protecting
the only thing
that still belonged to her.

And now —
she’s not just out.
She’s free.

What Acceptance Feels Like Now

Acceptance feels like softness.

Not because the journey was soft —
but because I had to soften to stay in it.

It feels like breathing again.
Like watching her become herself
from across the miles…
and realizing we’re somehow closer now
than we’ve ever been.

It feels like finally exhaling
the fear that used to drive me.
Like the air between us has cleared.
Like grief and gratitude
sitting quietly side by side.

It doesn’t mean I did everything right.
It doesn’t mean I never wish
I had known more, sooner, better.

It means I’m here now.

It means I love her now.

It means I see her — truly see her — now.

And she sees herself.
And that changes everything.

To Trans Kids

You don’t have to prove anything.

You don’t have to explain every feeling
or make it make sense to anyone else.

Your truth is not too much.
Your identity is not a burden.
Your becoming is not an inconvenience.

There is nothing wrong with you.

There never was.

Even if your parents don’t get it yet —
some of us are trying.

We’re learning how to show up for you
the way you deserve.
And we’re not going to stop.

You are not alone.

To Parents Like Me

The ones who made it look like acceptance came easy —

It didn’t come easy.

But it came immediately.

Not because I got it all right.
Not because I’m better than anyone else.
Because I was ready.

Because I’ve spent my whole life
trying to understand other people’s perspectives —
hoping maybe someone would one day
try to understand mine.

Because I know what it feels like
to go unseen.
To feel unworthy of being known.
To carry the weight
of someone else’s expectations
instead of being allowed
to just be.

And I made a promise to myself
long before this moment ever came:

That my kids would never have to wonder

whether they were worth knowing.

So I work on myself.
I learn. I unlearn. I listen. I integrate.

Because I don’t want my children
to inherit the silence I grew up with.
And I don’t want to miss who they are
because I’m still tangled in who I was taught to be.

No, it didn’t come easy.

But when the moment arrived —

I didn’t miss it.

And I won’t miss the next one either.

To Parents Who Are New to This

If your child trusts you enough
to tell you who they really are —
believe them.

Even if it surprises you.
Even if it scares you.
Even if it challenges
everything you thought you knew.

You don’t have to be perfect.
You just have to love them more than you love being right.

This is what it means to be a mother.

And this is what it means to see her.