Sometimes, it feels like I’m healing a little girl I never got to meet. - By Damielle Rovelyn V. Valera

Written By: Damielle Rovelyn V. Valera

Category: Essay

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Damielle Rovelyn V. Valera's poignant essay, "Sometimes, it feels like I’m healing a little girl I never got to meet," is a compelling entry in the Essay category of the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. This deeply personal and introspective piece explores the theme of healing the inner child through simple acts of love and care. Valera invites readers on a reflective journey, shedding light on the profound impact of being cherished without conditions.

About the Work

The essay’s tone is tender and introspective, capturing the gentle process of healing through the unpretentious acts of love. Valera's narrative is richly woven with vivid imagery and emotional depth, revealing the transformative power of being remembered and cared for in the smallest ways. It emphasizes the notion that healing is not about erasing the past, but rather creating new memories that nurture and affirm one's worth.

Sometimes, it feels like I’m healing a little girl I never got to meet.

Original Submission by Damielle Rovelyn V. Valera

Sometimes, it feels like I’m healing a little girl I never got to meet.

Sometimes, I think the child in me is still standing in the kitchen, small enough that her feet don’t quite touch the floor, waiting to find out if she is allowed to have another piece.

Not because she is hungry.

Because she has learned that wanting can be dangerous.

Sometimes, love looks a lot like giving a child what she should have never had to beg for.

Love, I’ve come to realize, is being allowed to finish your food without someone reminding you that you’re gaining weight. It is someone asking, what do you want to eat? And actually waiting for the answer. It is getting your favorite things without having to explain why you want them.

When someone asks what you want to eat and means it, really means it, something inside me goes very quiet.

Because I am still learning what it means to be offered something without having to earn it first.

Love, I’ve come to realize, is someone ordering food for you before you even ask. Not because you can’t feed yourself, but because they know you have had a long day and want there to be one less thing for you to carry.

It is hearing, I already ordered yours, and not having to brace yourself for the sentence that comes after.

It is someone remembering every order you have. Knowing which drink you like, which meal you always get, what you will probably crave when you are tired. It is opening someone’s notes app and finding a list of your allergies because, apparently, they thought: I should remember these things. She should be safe with me.

How strange.

How devastatingly tender.

To be loved by someone who keeps a record of the things that can hurt you.

Sometimes healing looks embarrassingly ordinary.

It looks like being handed the bigger piece.

It looks like never having to apologize for being hungry.

And sometimes, it is worrying so much about you that someone cannot sleep at night. Checking whether you got home. Wondering if you ate. Thinking about whether you are all right even after you have said you are.

Not because they do not trust you.

But because, somewhere along the way, your wellbeing became something their heart keeps track of.

Love, I’ve come to realize, is a hand reaching for yours at the edge of a busy street.

Here.

Not because you are incapable of crossing it yourself. Not because you are small or helpless. Simply because there are cars, and someone would rather hold your hand than risk anything happening to you.

Because they want you on the other side with them.

I think that is the part that undoes me.

How love can be so practical.

Not grand declarations.

Not flowers every week.

Not the kind of romance that needs an audience.

Love, I’ve come to realize, is a cup of chocolate made exactly the way you like it. A 9 p.m. alarm called “study time.” Someone switching places when you are walking too close to the road. Someone fixing your collar before you leave. Someone listening to you yap about your dreams, your panic, your ridiculous little thoughts about the world.

Love, I’ve come to realize, is someone remembering you in all the smallest ways.

And maybe that is the part that heals me most.

Because there are things I used to think were too much to ask for: food without guilt. Attention without making a scene. Someone worrying about me without making me feel like a burden. Someone knowing what hurts me and remembering anyway.

Now, I am learning that care can be this ordinary.

Someone says, you haven’t eaten yet, have you?

Someone says, I already ordered yours.

Someone pushes the last piece toward my plate.

You want it?

And I laugh, because of course I do!

The little girl in me would have wanted it too.

Perhaps this is what it means to heal the child in you. Not becoming someone who no longer needs to be cared for, but becoming someone who finally understands that needing care was never the shameful part.

The shame was being taught that you had to disappear your needs to deserve someone’s tenderness.

Unfortunately, I am still learning how to receive it.

Sometimes I still wait for the catch. I still feel guilty when someone spends money on me, or worries about me, or gives me more than I think I deserve. Sometimes I still mistake being cared for as being a burden.

Sometimes I catch myself waiting for the old punishment.

For the comment.

The sigh.

The look that says, you’ve had enough.

But it never comes.

Instead, there is someone beside me.

There is food.

There is a hand in mine.

There is someone who remembers.

And perhaps that is enough to teach a frightened little girl that the world has changed.

Slowly. Patiently. In the language of lunches and food deliveries. In the language of sleepless nights and little reminders that say, I thought of you. In the language of someone noticing that you are quiet and staying long enough for you to tell them why.

How lucky I am to be loved in ways that reach backwards.

To be given, now, the things I once thought I had to live without.

To be fed without fear.

To be wanted without having to shrink.

To be worried about without being made to feel guilty.

To be known in all my little details and still be chosen.

Maybe healing is not going back and changing what happened.

Maybe sometimes, it is simply giving the child in you enough new memories that the old ones stop being the only truth she knows.

Maybe she is still there.

Still small in some places.

Still frightened in others.

Still counting sometimes.

Still waiting for permissions she no longer needs.

But she is learning.

She is learning that dinner is not a test.

That hunger is not a moral failure.

That being worried about can be a form of being held.

That somewhere, someone has probably lost sleep because they were thinking about whether she got home safely.

That somewhere, there is a person who knows exactly what she cannot eat, exactly what she likes, exactly how she likes her drinks—and reaches for her hand anyway.

And maybe the child in me does not need to be healed all at once.

Maybe she only needs to experience, over and over and over again, the astonishingly ordinary miracle of being chosen.

Of being fed.

Of being remembered.

Of being protected without being made to feel weak.

Of being loved without having to become less of herself first.

Maybe that is what growing up is.

Not leaving the child in you behind, but finally becoming the person who can find her where she has been waiting all this time.

Sitting beside her.

Taking her hand.

And telling her, softly, as though it has always been true:

You can have some more.

You were never too much.

You never had to earn this.

You are loved.

And this time,

when she looks toward the door,

she knows someone is coming with her.

Come on.

We’re going home.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious platform for writers and poets worldwide to showcase their literary talents. This competition celebrates creativity and originality, providing participants with the opportunity to express their unique voices and share their stories with a global audience.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Damielle Rovelyn V. Valera for her insightful contribution, "Sometimes, it feels like I’m healing a little girl I never got to meet," to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her essay resonates with a poignant message of love and healing, leaving a lasting impression on its readers. Thank you, Damielle, for sharing this touching journey of growth and self-discovery.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.