The responsibility I carried at the age I should've been carried was heavy. I did carry it though. I carried it with all the strength I had in my 60 pound body and I kept carrying it for years, but I stayed small. Physically and mentally. I just didn't realize that for a long time. I thought because I could cook before I was tall enough to ride the ferris wheel, and comfort with the wisdom of a woman 6 times my age, that it meant I was all grown up. I thought that because I knew how to mix drinks before I could legally drink them, and clean a house like a trained professional, that I was all grown up. I thought my old soul, and wisdom that I was praised for as a child, meant that I was an adult this whole time. I knew deep down that it wasn't right, and I wasn't the right kind of kid. But I never quite knew why, and I never felt like anything was missing. But it was because I had never been around something really normal, or healthy, or right.
The older I got, I sort of realized that I was missing out. My daddy never cooked, or spent time with us, and my mom wasn't affectionate or kind. I didn't receive love, or hugs, or reassurance. I was met with disdain and disappointment from a young age, and that just never changed. But as I grew up, and went to friends houses, or worked with kids, I started to realize that the things done to me, and not done for me, were completely wrong. Mind-bogglingly wrong.
I saw children being met with compassion, and affection, and patience. I saw parents who laid with their children and watched movies, and ask them how they felt, and cook for them, and comfort them. I saw safety and comfort in those children's eyes. I saw something I wish I had known the feeling of. I saw memories I wish I had, instead of the blank slate in my mind where my childhood should be. I like to think that there's a reason I don't remember much of it; if it's anything like the bits and pieces I do remember, I don't want to remember the rest. I don't want to put the pieces together and look at the whole puzzle. I am terrified of what that would mean for me, and I truly don't think I can handle it.
I do wish I had never seen healthy love like that sometimes. It has set me back tremendously. To know that there is always the choice of being good, and they couldn't do that for me. To witness first hand how happy and carefree I could've been, had they just loved me a little better. I learned when I taught children, that I find comfort in the things they do as well. I find peace in the small mundane things that bring children joy. I love to color, and fingerpaint, and sleep with a stuffy, and play in the rain. I find solace in playing make-believe outside, and talking to the trees like they're talking right back. All of the things I never did when I was little, but now I'm big. Now I work, and read, and write. I still sit outside, but I can't talk to the trees, and I can't play make-believe. I still sleep with a stuffy, but I don't carry it around with me like I would like to, and I don't like to tell anyone I sleep with one.
I don't like to tell people I'm still scared of the dark, and that I hate sleeping alone. I don't like to tell people that every time it rains, my body is pulling me like gravity to go dance in it. I don't like to tell people that sometimes I like to be wrapped up and held like a baby because it's the only thing that truly calms me down. I don't like to tell people that more often than not, I feel like a small, scared child, in a big, terrifying world. I don't like to tell people that when I feel alone, my mind drifts back to all the times I was alone as a little kid. Being left in the supermarket, being home alone in the middle of the night with kids to watch because I was long forgotten after a few too many shots downtown.
I feel like I look put together, and grown up, like I'm handling this whole adult thing really well. But truly, I am mentally 5 years old, and scared, and lonely. Like this little girl wants to crawl out of my adult skin, and burrow herself in a hole with her favorite stuffy, and hide. She is craving love, and comfort, and reassurance, and safety. She is screaming out for the compassion she has never been shown. She wants to play in the dirt, and watch The Little Mermaid, and wants someone to hold her when she cries. She wants someone to soothe her back to sleep when the night terrors wake her up. She wants to listen to someone's heartbeat while they read her a bedtime story. She wants the childhood she was robbed of. But she can't have it, and I think that's why she cries. That's why I cry.
When it's late at night, and I wake up from the night terrors, I sob in silence, stuffy in hand, begging God to fix it, to fix me. Make me feel grown up like I used to. Make me cook, and comfort, and fix. Make me able to do for myself what I did for everyone else. But I cannot hold myself, I cannot rub my own arm till sleep consumes me, I cannot be my own safe space, when I am no longer grown up. I feel like I have regressed into a small child seeking shelter wherever I can find it, accepting any affection thrown my way, like a dog begging for scraps. I am ashamed to feel this small, and embarrassed of it honestly. I miss the oblivion I lived in before I knew love and comfort were an option. I miss not knowing there was an alternative. I miss not knowing what could've been my life. I miss feeling grown up.
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