What I knew

“What I Knew Before They Told Me Who I Was”

The soul-encoded memories I carried into this life — and how I almost forgot them.

I was never the kind of child who grew into awareness.

I came in with it.

Before I even had the language to name what I felt, I knew.

I knew the world was more than it appeared.

I knew something was off.

And I knew — somehow — that this system of shiny coins and adult rules wasn’t how life was originally designed to be.

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I remember sitting in the back seat of a car, around age four, staring out at the clouds.

I imagined I was a doll — being moved around by something I couldn’t see.

I wasn’t scared.

I was just aware.

Even at that age, I sensed there was a layer beneath the visible world — something orchestrating the movement, the timing, the unfolding.

And that awareness never left me. It just got quieter… harder to explain.

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Around the same time, I remember knowing something I couldn’t possibly have been taught:

That my vision — my ability to see the world in its full brightness — wouldn’t last.

That colours would dull. That magic would fade. That the world would try to filter the vibrancy out of me.

I didn’t panic. I just noted it.

Like a soul whisper:

> “Remember this. Because one day, you’ll want it back.”

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When I was 1, I saw myself in my cot.

Not from inside my body — but above it.

I can still picture it now. That quiet sense of being the observer. The one who’d just arrived.

I think that’s when I first met the witness — the part of me that sees without judgement. The part of me that never forgets.

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When I was 3, I had a little boy as a best friend in nursery.

He was a boy of colour — sweet, kind, funny. I adored him.

But when my mum asked what we were playing, I said something I couldn’t have possibly understood:

> “He’s my slave.”

I didn’t know what that word meant.

I didn’t learn it from hate.

But something — ancestral, collective, karmic — slipped through me.

And I never forgot it.

Not because I agreed with it — but because it woke something in me.

Even as a toddler, I knew that wasn’t who I was.

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When I was 7 or 8, I learned about the plague and cholera at school.

But I didn’t just learn it — I remembered it.

I could smell the streets. I could see the pipes running along the roads where people fetched their water.

It was visceral.

Like I’d been there.

Because maybe… I had.

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When I was 11, we moved house and I left my friend behind.

I cried for three days straight.

When I was taken on holiday with my dad, I cried for a week because I missed my mum.

My grandma said she’d never known anything like it.

How deeply I grieved.

How my body physically ached to be near her.

Not because I was spoiled or overly attached — but because she was my constant.

My safety. My first tether to love in this world.

Even now, I can still feel that child in me — the one who just wanted to be close to her mum.

Not because I couldn’t cope without her… but because I felt more whole with her.

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People around me didn’t always understand.

They tried to cheer me up. Offer distractions. Say “look on the bright side.”

But I wasn’t being dramatic.

I was grieving.

Because I felt loss in a way most people didn’t expect from a child.

And eventually, I think I started to mute myself to make others comfortable.

I began holding it in.

Smiling through heartbreak.

Diluting the colours of my soul just to match the grayscale of the world around me.

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Here’s what I know now:

Children aren’t “blank slates.”

They are living libraries.

In the early years, a child’s consciousness is still open — still connected to where they came from.

The veil is thinner. The soul is louder.

And the world… tries to close that channel far too soon.

I’ve spent most of my life slowly peeling that veil back again.

Recovering the memories.

Reclaiming the feelings.

Letting the colours come back.

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If you’ve ever felt like you “knew too much too young” —

If you remember moments that didn’t make sense at the time —

If you cried harder than you could explain…

You weren’t broken.

You were awake.

And maybe now, like me,

you’re ready to stop muting yourself for the comfort of others —

and finally, remember out loud.