let it go

“I’ve left the light on for you in my heart. I don’t know when it’ll burn out, but I hope you come back before it does.”

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

Do not tell me that girls cannot change the world. I grew on stories of a twelve year old Anne Frank in a cramped, silent room weaving hopeful magic with just a pen. And Ruby Bridges facing racist monsters when she was only six, to become the first African American child to desegregate an all white school. And Anandi Gopal Joshi, only 19 years old and the first woman doctor of India. And Mary Shelley changing the face of fiction forever by inventing a whole new genre at 18. I grew up on tales of girls fighting destiny, carving history with their own two hands, breaking down walls. So if my daughter ever doubts herself because she is told she cannot, I will hand her stories as a sword and faith as a shield and tell her, “You know what? They told Anne and Ruby and Anandi and Mary they couldn’t, too. And it didn’t stop them. Because nothing can stop a girl with eyes aflame with courage and a war song in her chest.”