The Pearls I Missed: Rescuing the Inner Child

On childhood, unseen magic, and the journey back to our lost inner pieces.

Sadness, Magic, and the 'Breadcrumbs' of Childhood.

Lately, childhood has been calling me from some distant corner of time, like an echo bouncing off the walls of memory. I remember the sun falling on my skin, as if it wanted to tell me a secret, as if it were trying to remind me where I came from and what it felt like to be there. I felt I didn’t belong here—that this planet, this family, this neighborhood were only passing stations, shadows of a home I didn’t know how to name.

There were moments when magic wrapped me in its invisible cloak; I felt surrounded by presences—some friendly, others more elusive, undefined. It was clear to me that there was so much more than what the human eye could see, that the world held hidden folds where the invisible breathed in silence. But as the years went by, that magic began to fade. The certainty that anything was possible, that all beings from all worlds were just a breath away, a single attempt apart, slowly slipped away. And I felt as if whatever had once protected me was now leaving me behind.

I began to feel life as a kind of prison—something to survive rather than enjoy. Magic seemed to belong only to the movies, as if it were worthy only of imaginary worlds, as if it couldn’t be found in every corner of this one, in every being who inhabits it.

I remember myself, hypnotized by the sunlight filtering through the leaves, trapped in gardens that weren’t mine. The world felt overwhelming, and belonging became an increasingly futile effort. I remember swimming pools I didn’t feel worthy of entering, and conversations in which my voice didn’t seem to resonate. I had no words to explain how I felt, or why. Only the certainty of “something more” that I couldn’t understand. I didn’t judge, I didn’t analyze. I just felt, perceived. Nostalgia, longing, sadness—a thread of fear that would sometimes rise on my skin like a strange little insect.

I remember being obsessed with pill bugs—those little creatures that curl up into balls when touched. I’d let them crawl over my hand, walk across my fingers, and I would think: how lucky they are—to be able to hide like that, to deny it all, tucked safely in their own warmth, in their own interior.

Sometimes, casual conversations with my daughter bring up questions about my own childhood, but only scattered images come to mind, like loose pages from a neglected book. My mother says I was a smiling child, but my memory insists on showing me shadows.

I fear my daughter might feel the way I once did. Sometimes I’m terrified that she might adapt, shut herself away in her own sorrow, drift in disorientation instead of knowing herself as part of everything—as part of the sun. So I exhale. I empty myself and look at her again, but more present, with more openness and allowanse. Because like me, like all of us, she's not alone, not separate from love.

Throughout my life, I tried to justify and express this sorrow—this feeling that the world was too harsh, that the air scraped against my skin. My ways were often received (or resisted) as victimhood, as if expressing the longing for another possible reality was simply a complaint. But I wasn’t seeking pity—I was seeking answers. Someone to tell me:

"You’re not alone. You’re not a stranger. The world is you."

Someone to help me see that my dreams weren’t illusions, but seeds meant to bloom. But we can’t give what we don’t have, and collective consciousness wasn’t what it is today; magic was just imagination, and we were just… people.

Life became a constant effort. I tried to adapt to what was already established, and I suffered deeply. Survival in all its glory. Even without visible wounds, a gray, muted winter had settled inside me. I looked around and felt that everyone had inherited some kind of luck—except me. That the universe had left me out of the pact, and so I committed to my inevitable fate: “It wasn’t meant for me.”

I felt I had no right to anything—not even to feel what I was feeling. For many years, I didn’t know how to change this perception of life, but I couldn’t resign myself to it either. Even if I hadn’t yet found any proof to support me. I wanted something more, something else—I think I longed for the right to exist in fullness.

So I would cry or get angry constantly; I was deeply suffering from living in a state of fragmentation.

My life became a series of attempts and adventures, of trials and errors. Constantly oscillating between horror stories and fairy tales. And yes, I can say I have lived. I honor each step and recognize that everything I’ve lived brought me here. It’s just that here wasn’t what I imagined. Here means I returned to myself, that I awakened within me.

All those experiences, those landscapes, those vertiginous or subtle movements, didn’t fully reveal what I was looking for—that which can only be touched and savored from within. Those gifts that reveal themselves only in the presence of kindness, an open heart, and compassionate silence.

I write this from the certainty that we are all finding our way back home. That each of us, in our own way and at our own pace, is recognizing the unbearable pain of fragmentation and opening our eyes as consciousness in this dimension. And I feel immense joy—here, from my inner home—for being more and more filled with the truth of who we are, and more and more surrendered to this exploration.

For me, today, the most direct path to peace is rescuing the inner child from every corner where she’s hidden from life. From every scene where she felt abandoned and remained frozen—suspended in time, locked in effort.

I have to love (allow). Because now I can see that within every sensation that arises and longs to be noticed, treasures reside—revealing themselves when the time is right, however they can. And nothing brings me more joy than unwrapping those gifts and finding the pearls I missed as a child.

Peace and ease,

Lu.