nobody tells you that growing up too fast doesn't feel fast at all. it feels like standing very still while everything around you speeds up and you're expected to keep pace with something you never agreed to.

they don't warn you about the way you'll carry it. not loudly. not with a headline or a breakdown. just quietly, in the way you flinch when someone raises their voice, or the way you say "i'm fine" before anyone even asks.

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i used to make myself smaller in every room i walked into. not physically — though sometimes that too — but in the way i spoke, the way i laughed a little too quietly, the way i always left a little early before anyone could really see me.

taking up space is something nobody taught me. i had to learn it the hard way, which means i'm still learning it. which means some days i still sit in the corner and hope nobody notices.

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there's a kind of grief that doesn't come with a funeral. no flowers, no casserole dishes left on the porch. it's the grief of things that were never yours to lose — a childhood that slipped past while you were busy being needed, a version of yourself that didn't make it out.

i'm still figuring out how to mourn something that was never fully mine to begin with. i think that's part of what this whole thing is.

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