Before I became a mother, I was already raising kids.

No, seriously.

Some people spent their childhood playing house. I was running the damn thing.

There were five younger siblings in the house, and somehow I became everybody’s backup parent before I even hit puberty. Laundry? Me. Dishes? Me. Cooking? Me. Cleaning bathrooms? Me. Watching the kids? Me. Bathing the kids? Also me.

Looking back, I’m honestly shocked nobody handed me a W-2.

The fucked up part is I didn’t even realize how abnormal it was.

When chaos is all you’ve ever known, chaos starts looking normal.

I thought every kid spent their afternoons cleaning kitchens and folding laundry.

I thought every kid felt guilty for sitting down.

I thought every kid got nervous when they heard their mother’s footsteps.

Turns out, they don’t.

Who knew?

While other girls were figuring out what they wanted to be when they grew up, I was figuring out how to get dinner on the table and keep younger kids alive.

That’s not me being dramatic.

That’s literally what the hell was happening.

I became responsible for so much that somewhere along the way I stopped being a child.

And nobody noticed.

Well, maybe they noticed.

Maybe they just didn’t care.

The thing about carrying adult responsibilities as a kid is people call you “mature.”

I hate that word.

People hear “mature” and picture some wise old soul.

Nah.

Most of the time “mature kid” is just code for “a child carrying shit they were never supposed to carry.”

I wasn’t mature.

I was overwhelmed.

I wasn’t strong.

I was surviving.

There’s a difference.

I’d spend hours helping around the house, cooking food, cleaning rooms, taking care of everybody else’s needs, and somehow there was always more to do.

Always.

The chores multiplied like fucking rabbits.

I’d finish one thing and three more things would magically appear.

I swear that house had side quests.

And God forbid you complain.

Complaining wasn’t an option.

Being tired wasn’t an option.

Wanting a break wasn’t an option.

You just kept moving.

Kept cleaning.

Kept helping.

Kept shrinking yourself.

The worst part wasn’t even the work.

The worst part was what it taught me.

It taught me that my value came from what I could do for other people.

How useful I was.

How much I sacrificed.

How much bullshit I could tolerate before breaking.

It took me years to realize that’s not love.

That’s conditioning.

And when you spend your childhood being everybody else’s caretaker, you grow up not knowing how to care for yourself.

I knew how to solve everybody else’s problems.

I knew how to anticipate everybody else’s needs.

I knew how to keep the peace.

But I had no clue who the hell I was.

Because nobody ever asked me.

And honestly, I didn’t know I was allowed to ask myself.

I spent so much time helping raise everyone else that I never got the chance to become me.

Not yet, anyway.

The funny thing about survival is that while you’re living it, you think it’s normal.

It’s only years later that you sit back and go,

“Damn… that shit was actually crazy.”

And unfortunately, we were just getting started.

commonplace notebook - myth of atalanta

found the arcane art book on a bookstore today and took a pic of my husband silco ♡