For Matilda, When You’re Older
My darling girl,
If you’re reading this, it means time has passed.
You’ve grown. Maybe you’re taller than me now. Maybe you roll your eyes when I cry at silly things. Maybe you’re starting to ask the big questions, the ones with no neat answers. Maybe you’re wondering who I really was when I wasn’t just “Mum.”
Well—here I am.
Matilda, you are the bravest part of my story.
You arrived like a spark in the dark and changed everything. Loving you wasn’t something I had to learn—it came like breath. Like instinct. Like magic.
There were hard days, my love. Days when the world felt too loud, when my thoughts ran wild, and fear tried to pull me under. I live with something called OCD—it’s like having a storm inside my head that never quite quiets. It told me that good things don’t last, that love is risky, that joy always slips away.
But then you’d laugh, or curl up next to me, or tell me something ridiculous about sloths or space—and suddenly, I’d remember: the storm could wait. You were here.
And that meant I was safe.
You taught me to look up again. To find cups of stars in ordinary days.
You made me braver than I thought I could be.
If you ever feel strange or too much or like your heart doesn’t quite fit the world—remember this: you don’t have to shrink. You were born to take up space. You were born to stay weird. You were born to shine.
Stay wild, moon child.
Grow fiercely. Love fully. Trust your strange, magical instincts.
And never forget: you are made from love that never once wavered—not even in the dark.
You are the child of a woman who walked through her own shadows and still chose joy. Still chose you.
You are my favourite poem.
My wildflower.
My moon child, full of stardust and defiance.
With everything I have,
always and forever, mumma xx