Getting Back Into Writing

I was the oldest.

You were the youngest.

We both understood how we were nothing in our parents eyes.

Yet, we want things that go against our very roles.

You want to be heard and seen.

You want to help others bear their crosses as they collapse to the ground.

You want my role.

I don’t want to be perceived.

I want to be held and coaxed and told that everything’s okay.

That I don’t have to be strong anymore.

I want to be cradled like the cross others struggle to carry.

I want your role.

But I can’t have that.

I can’t see myself having that.

So I deprive both of us from doing what we truly want.

Because I am the oldest, and I have to always be strong.

I have to be seen and heard, I have to help others with their struggles.

I always have.

I can’t just relinquish it to you.

As my father always said, “you have to earn it”.

I won’t give it to you easily, you’re gonna have to take it from me.

I know you won’t though.

You are the youngest, you are meant to be soft.

You were raised to depend on everyone else and you struggle to actually take control and motivate yourself to do the things you so desperately wish you can already do all by yourself.

That’s why you need me.

I take care of you.

You understand that I can wrangle control better than you can, because I am the oldest and you are the youngest.

I can’t trust you with this responsibility.

Only I can wield it, because it was thrust upon me since I was a young child.

Sometimes, I think to myself “is this it? Is this what everything has culminated too? Is this?”.

And usually it’s over small things, things I honestly shouldn’t be hitting heads over because I’m not doing it too.

So, I tuck it away.

I fold it neatly and pack it in a drawer I imagine in the back of my head that I call “The Back Burner”.

But lately, the Back Burner is starting to overflow.

All the tiny instances of “we should be working on this”, “this needs to be replaced”, “why hasn’t this been done yet?”, and “was this taken care of” is just flowing out like a constant stream all the way up to the front of my mind that I call the Landing Pad.

I feel like I’m driving myself insane, because I’m overwhelmed by it all.

The house projects, the job searching, the social functions, all of it.

But when I bring it up to the others in the house, they’ll say they’ll do it, but then never do.

It just feels like their default is to excuse and lie, and that’s all their family does.

But I know that’s wrong to think, because we’re all neurodivergent and varying degrees of mentally ill.

Yet, at the end of the day, I still feel like because of this that I have to do everything.

I have to be the one to tackle the house projects.

That I have to be one to find a new job so that I can financially contribute to bills and groceries and gas, so then eventually I can move us out to place that isn’t falling apart that we can call home.

That I have to be the one to attend the social functions, because I have the ability and energy to show face and lull acquaintances into another period of “yes, everything is fine and dandy back home. They just couldn’t make it for *clearly a lie, to mask the fact that they just don’t want to be here with you*”.

I have to do it all.

Because clearly they won’t.

Thoughts, dreams, feelings.

They swirl in my head like the makings of candy floss while simultaneously crashing like waves within the ocean of my skull.

Feels like many decrepit hands scratching and itching for a way out, but I don’t let them see the light of day.

They don’t deserve the light.

Besides, everyone comes to me with their issues, problems, faults, vents, dreams, passions, and mundane conversations.

They don’t have time to listen to me anyway.

They don’t want to listen, they just want to be heard.

I give them that.

If I could, I’d give them everything and more because they deserve it more than I do.

They’ve gone through worse or they feel like they have, and they don’t want help.

They want to be coaxed.

I give them that.

I give them what I desperately crave, because I don’t deserve it in this lifetime.

Everyday it’s like I’m a ship caught in a storm, I have to be the pillar because everyone else acts like they are too weak to hold themselves up.

But I’m getting tired.

I feel as though the sea will envelop me and that I will sink down below.

And deep down, I know I deserve it because this is what I chose.

I chose to remain this way.

I can not trust myself which makes me not fully trust others with my maelstrom mind because I feel like my very existence is a burden, and that I should bear it alone.

I don’t want their help.

I need it.

That’s what makes me hate myself more.

I don’t want to burden them with me, but I need them.

But I doubt that they want me for me.

They just want my presence.

Because everyone wants the night-light, but no one wants it when it’s usefulness has run out.

I fear I’m close to running out of my usefulness and that soon no one wants me around anymore.

Maybe I should just-

Let go.

But I won’t.

For now, they still need me.

They still claim to want me, so I’ll stay.

I’ll stand a little taller and I will listen to them.

I will coax them when they are feeling horrible about themselves or situations.

I will be there for them.