#it's insane lol. i refuse to soften any part of it for absolutely anyone else

[ii-zi]

I've taught my entire life.

I'm an oldest sister, as well as an older cousin. I've raised other people's children for years. I've been shoved children of all ages at every single gathering, party, etc I've been.

More often than not I find (or found, as it's been quite a few years since I was last "in public) myself surrounded by children, young and not so young, when I'm clearly not nearly the only grown person around. Most of the time I don't even know them.

I've taught entire lessons after the teachers were done with them because, apparently, a child was better at adjusting the material to make it understandable than an adult professor. I can still repeat almost word by word some of the strategies I used as far as in middle school to help the kids, who even their own parents had “given up” with, finish their algebra class work.

Breaking down concepts, reshaping explanations; taking an elaborated, alien idea and giving it to others in the form of metaphors or more digestible examples; helping just for the sake of it. I've never known anything else, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But it's not a matter of attention or regret.

I've always done it because I genuinely enjoy it. I love being helpful. I love being the step, the little push people needed to go through what was giving them trouble. If I had to think of an ideal job I'd just sit somewhere and wait for people to come to me with their current issue, however big or small, to see what can I help them with.

I've always enjoyed it, and have internalized my entire world through these lenses. Nothing brings me more joy than having just the right info, just the right skill to get someone out of a predicament.

And I've never received any form of payment. I've not once asked for it. I don't really need it, since it's doing it what brings me so much happiness in on itself. But it always makes me happy when someone I've helped before remembers and comes asking for help later on, or sends somebody my way because they knew I'd be of help.

I have very little desire to have kids, since I know I'm in no shape to be my own main support, much less a kid's. Not even considering giving birth either, since I wouldn't dare make an innocent creature have to deal with the genes that have done to me what they did.

Yet I still find myself explaining to no one simple life concepts. Often I realize I've been standing still in the same spot for who knows how long, making up entire child-tailored explanations about all of those things I had to teach myself about life, about reality, about people, etc. Making it a little easier for the children than don't exist.

But I know this isn't some sort of unconscious desire to have children that I'm "repressing". I've done more than enough caretaking for a life, though I don't regret it, for it has brought me more than enough joy.

It's specially after those little moments that I realize how much of myself I'm missing, how much of myself I'm actively losing, how much I've always missed the me that never really existed.

I'm slipping through my own fingers, and it's in those moments that I cherish so much, that I'm faced with the reality that my life will never be even remotely what it was.

And I don't mean in an "unavoidable change that comes with time" way. I mean, in the most literal way possible, that every waking moment I'm not lost in thought I'm actively hit on the face with the world shattering realization that I'm losing grasp of the one thing that previously had never failed me, my one and only joy, my biggest pride.

I'm the only one living inside my own mind and body, and the one who has to bear with the weight of knowing I'll never get my mind back.

I never lost hope for the recovering of my body, since I never had any on the first place. I know there are things both inside and outside that could be changed that could make existence in it a bit easier, but I've never thought I was broken or wrong for having a body that “doesn't work".

And I don't blame myself (or my mind, for all that matters) for what's happened to my own mind. I don't think any less of myself for it, and I certainly don't expect (and don't allow) any change in how people see me. I don't think it's any type of sin or whatever to need more help, to be able to do less things, to "achieve less".

I know myself and my own limits, and I don't give myself grief over any of them.

But it's so hard not to think about what's been lost. It's so, so hard not to cry for all those little joys I'll never experience again. It's so hard every time I realize how long it's been since the last time I truly helped someone with my own abilities, how long it's been since I brought any joy to myself and not via external means.

And it's just so baffling to me, noticing how people refuse to see it, when it's been eating me from the inside. Being told to my own face that it's temporary, I'm making it up, it's all in my mind, it doesn't exist, you're stronger than than, don't let it affect you.

It's absolutely unexplainable to me, the fact that everyone simply prefers to pretend nothings going on. I'm not pretending nothing's happening, I'm working my own way through all the difficulties that come with it, slowly working my way through the pain that accepting it brought me.

I, the one directly affected in every single aspect of my own life, didn't allow myself to deny it. Maybe I couldn't afford to, I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one seeing it because it's me.

But if I'm in this much pain because of so many things I have no control over, if I'm struggling this much just to keep going, how can they all just let themselves turn a blind eye to it? Blame me for it?

Sometimes I rationalize it, thinking it must be really hard on anyone else to change their entire perspective around a whole person. But I'm standing right in the middle of it. It's everything I've ever known, of course I wouldn't have noticed earlier. Of course I'm going through such lengths just to process it. But to anyone else who doesn't have to live with it, on it. To anyone else who has something to compare it, to compare me to, shouldn't it had been obvious? Shouldn't they have seen it coming already? Weren't there any signs at all? Wasn't i worth enough for them to notice anything or am I just such a master at hiding it all?

It's not even worth it to complain about what they didn't, or refused to see. But if I'm never getting back "what I lost", why is it so hard for everyone else to understand that they aren't either? Why do they all seem to expect to get back all that I lost of myself, just for them, when I couldn't even do it for myself, when I matter so much to me?

#it's insane lol. i refuse to soften any part of it for absolutely anyone else #im not flattening my load just for anyone else to feel better about ignoring my struggle #I've not once blamed myself. not once overestimated my own capacity (or underestimated. but that's an entirely different tale) #if i dont allow myself to worsen my own load for my own benefit. why does everyone else expect me to do it for them. why are they all #so angry. so disappointed. so frustrated about it #why can't they just let me chill lol I've always been way more help when unbothered. I've raised entire kids while being a kid myself #and they all came out great lol. but only bc i was willingly being helpful. bc i did it for my own joy. why are they trying to squeeze the #life out of me djdjjdjf let me rest #(i don't mean my parents btw i mean like. the World™) #ft #long post