I don't remember exactly when the worry started. I only remember that, for a long time, it felt like it had always been there, a quiet hum underneath everything, ready to grow louder the moment something felt uncertain.
I was the kind of child who worried about things long before there was anything to worry about. A test that was weeks away. A comment someone might make. Whether I'd said the wrong thing, or worn the wrong thing, or simply been too much, or not enough. Looking back now, I don't think anyone around me realised how loud that quiet hum actually was. I don't think I had the words for it either. I just carried it, the way children often do, silently, and alone.
What I wish I'd known then is something so simple it almost feels strange to write down, worry isn't a sign that something is wrong with you. It's just a feeling, like any other, doing its best to protect you from something it thinks might hurt. It doesn't need to be fixed or fought. It just needs to be noticed, gently, and given somewhere safe to be.
I didn't know that as a child. So instead, I carried it quietly for years, believing it was simply a part of who I was, rather than a feeling passing through who I was.
It's taken me most of my life to learn the difference.
Why this became a story
This is part of why Amelia Rose and the Voice of Worry came to be. Not as a lesson in how to stop worrying as I don't think that's really possible, or even the point, but as a gentle companion for a child who might be carrying a similar quiet hum of their own, without yet having the words for it either.
In the story, Amelia notices a worried voice inside her, one that grows louder the more she tries to ignore it. She doesn't defeat it or silence it. She simply learns to notice it, understand it a little better, and let it soften in its own time. That felt like the truest thing I could offer, not a solution, but companionship. Not "here's how to fix this," but "you are not alone in this."
A thought, not an instruction
I don't have children of my own, so I won't pretend to know the right thing to say to a worried child in any given moment, every child, and every kind of worry, is different, and I trust the adults who love them to know that far better than I do.
But if there's a child in your life who carries a quiet hum of their own, perhaps there's a small comfort in this, they don't need their worry to disappear in order to feel safe. Sometimes, simply having it noticed without needing to be fixed is enough to make it feel a little lighter.
That's the small hope I carried into this story. Not answers. Just company.
With love, Donna Marie, Creator of The World of Amelia Rose
You might also like: Amelia Rose and the Voice of Worry - a gentle story for young girls who carry worried thoughts, and the grown-ups who love them.
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