A letter to the woman who found me on the side of the road when I was 5

Dear random nice neighborhood lady,

I don’t know who you are, but you saw me at my most vulnerable. A child, sitting on the ground in the rain with my huge colorful backpack on my shoulders. A dumb 5 year old who, after knocking on my Kindergarten teacher’s door a million times, and looking around at the empty hallways of my school, realizing I was all alone, ran down the street and turned the corner, thinking that maybe if I ran fast enough I’d be able to catch up with my aunt’s car. Only to stop then, not seeing her car, not knowing where I was, in pure fight or flight, sobbing on the ground with my knees clenched to my chest, not knowing what to do or what would happen to me next.

I looked up and You, an Angel, found me. You asked me what I was doing there. I probably told you some scared, snotty 5 year old answer through my sobs.

You cared, you called the police, and I made it home safely in the back of a police car. And the only thing I can remember my mom saying to me at the time is why I didn’t go the other way home across the track, through the forest, that I knew.

But that’s not the point. The point is that in my darkest moment, in pure terror, I had no choice but to trust a stranger. The stranger was the one that got me home. YOU were the stranger that got me home.

And it is strangers I have continued to trust since then. And wow has that taught me more than anything. And it’s actually been a good thing for me, for the most part.

In that moment, as a terrified lost child, fear made me forget that I knew the answer how to get home all along. But I ran towards the security I knew, only to find that it wasn’t there.

Is it my fault I was left all alone?

No.

This is the soul growth I was dealt.

This is the soul growth lesson that gets me every time.
But I promise I won’t be the lost, sobbing child forever.
Because you found me.

A lot of random people find me. They remind me I matter and that I deserve to find a way home.

And all this time I thought it was a place, or a person. But it turns out it’s actually me.

That happy, confident version of 5 year old me, who knew her way home a few moments before she knocked on that door and realized she was abandoned, alone, and that nobody would be coming for her.

I am my home. I am so grateful for all the people out there like you who remind me.