Why I Write to You

Dear Gabrielle,

Why do I write to you?

✧ Because I Hope You’ll Exist

I hope I’ll have a girl and a boy. But if I had to choose, I’d choose a girl. For all the wrong reasons. And for all the right ones, too.

Maybe it’s because I lost a girl once.

Maybe I’m still haunted by the one I didn’t get to raise—the milestones I never witnessed, the lullabies I never sang, the love I never got to pour out.

Maybe what I want is a second chance. Not a replacement. Not a do-over that erases the pain. But a second daughter. A second heartbeat. A chance to finish what I couldn’t. To show up better. To mother more fully.

You wouldn’t be a placeholder. You wouldn’t be her shadow.

You’d be you.

A different chapter. A separate story. A new breath in my lungs. And yes, your coming wouldn’t undo the loss—but it might remind me that I still know how to love, how to hope, how to begin again.

Because that’s what a second chance really is: not forgetting, but remembering with grace. Not erasing, but rewriting with gentler hands.

I don’t expect you to heal me. You’re not my redemption.

But maybe, just maybe, you’ll be my reminder that life—no matter how cruel—still leaves room for beauty. And that love, no matter how broken, still finds ways to return.

✧ To Correct What Wasn’t Right

Maybe I want a girl because I want to correct the mistakes my own mother made with me. Maybe it’s that need to do better. To love more openly. To give what I didn’t get.

Because, Gabrielle, I’ve judged my mother. Harshly. Sometimes too harshly.

There was a time I craved my father’s attention, too. Desperately. But not anymore. I’ve outgrown that longing—mostly. He’s my only living parent now, and even in his flaws, I’m learning to forgive him. Because parents are just people, and people mess up.

Still, I can’t lie: I want to raise you in a way that I wasn’t raised. To see what life could’ve been like if I had been loved for who I was—not how well I measured up to the silent expectations of womanhood. I want to love you simply because you’re mine, because you exist, and because you deserve joy, not performance.

I wonder what my life might’ve looked like if my mother had seen me outside the “good Christian girl” script. If she had given me space to grow into myself without shame.

I want you to have that space.

✧ To Leave a Record

My birth mother died young. I have only a few stories about her, and I know nothing of her thoughts, her struggles, her desires. The woman who raised me was cold and distant. I was always disappointing her, never enough for her affection. And when I remember her—her silence, her detachment—I feel so small. So alone.

That’s why I write to you, Gabrielle.

Because one day, I want you to know my heart. If life separates us, if my mistakes drive you away, if I’m no longer around to explain myself—I want these letters to speak for me.

If we grow apart, if you ever feel lost in your pain, I want you to come back here and read these words. To remember that I tried. That I had dreams and demons just like you. That I fought for myself every day—sometimes with fire, sometimes with tears.

That I was not perfect, but I was yours.

That your mother was a woman first—middle-aged, depressed, broke, childless. But still hopeful.

✧ Because Life Is Cyclical

Our lives as women are cyclical. Our battles echo through generations. My struggle today might be your lesson tomorrow. What I drop, you might pick up. What I fail at, you might master.

So I write. Because maybe the internet is the best time machine we have. Maybe these words will find you, long after I’m gone, and you’ll understand who I was when I still didn’t fully understand myself.

And if you read this after you’ve judged me—harshly or fairly—I hope it helps you soften.

And if you read this when you’re a mother, too—I hope it helps you forgive.

With love.