Dear Gifted Girl

*I wrote this in 2020 after being denigrated by a family member when they expressed a concern and then attacked me when I quietly offered to help them, even offering to make a huge sacrifice for them. I hope it still helps someone who needs to hear it today. XOXO, Laura.

Dear Gifted Girl,

You are BIG, beautiful, and loved and you don’t even know it, because somehow people are scared of your bright, loving brilliance, and they will do everything they can to crush you and make you small, because they can’t understand the BIGNESS that is you.

You will offer them love and the gift of yourself—your knowledge, creativity, passion, and the facts of the complex way you take in the world with full intensity, and sometimes, maybe most of the time, they will reject those gifts, leaving them soiled or wrapped up tight in a pit of despair, trampled like pearls before swine. Be brave, because one day you’ll meet other women like you who can understand your jokes and references, who savor that knowledge, who take your shiny gifts with joy and gladness and who see YOU, who don’t squish you inside or frown on your education or achievements or make you stuff yourself away in the attic of your mind. You won’t be alone forever, even though often it feels like it. Those people will become your family and they will thrive from knowing you, just as you will thrive from knowing them. They will hear you, see you, and love you in ways that sometimes even your own family isn’t willing to try doing. They’ll learn that you’re both smart and funny, can solve problems, and create value in the world. Be brave and wait for such friends to come into your life.

Dear Gifted Girl, sometimes you will be asked to quiet your voice—by men and other women, too, who find your very existence a threat and center blame on you just for existing—just for being big, beautiful, bright and shiny. Rather than having your expertise valued, sometimes you’ll be treated like you’re invisible or have your achievements denigrated. People will hate your mind. Sometimes you’ll have people who try to build themselves up by insulting you, taking credit for your ideas, or just ignoring you. At other times, people will see only your gifts–not you–and try to exploit them. That’s on them, not on you. They can’t make you smaller, because you are still YOU, so raise your voice. Let the world hear you. Let them know there is fierceness inside that soul—a fierceness that screams for a place in the world, for validation, to be heard and a fierceness they can’t silence. When they tear apart your accomplishments or try to erase you from existence, stand tall. Be unshakeable. You’ve lost nothing. They are only shattering an illusion they built with already cracked glass. You are not the person they are attacking, because they don’t know you, not with depth or sincerity. They are too afraid of their own selves—their own illusions—for that. God will supply the community you need elsewhere.

Dear Gifted Girl, your emotions are a BIG part of you, and some of those same people won’t be able to handle the depth of your sensitivity or empathy. Don’t let them convince you to hide your super powers. You will make the world a better place by caring deeply, pursuing justice, and defending the powerless, even if on a some occasions the powerless person is yourself, because of the wicked ways people try to knock women down. Use those super powers even when no one understands, joins the fight, or ‘gets it.’ The God of the Universe, who made big, beautiful, brilliant you, truly does. He loves you and he will lift you up.

Love,

Another Gifted Girl Who Survived