What These Eyes Have Seen

1

I always thought to myself, why did I have to be the firstborn?

If I had been the second, or the third, maybe life wouldn't have pressed its full weight on my small shoulders. Maybe the tears that kept coming wouldn't have felt so endless. Maybe I would have had the chance to be a child—just once, just long enough to remember what it felt like.

But I didn't.

Instead, I became something else. A caretaker. A protector. A stand-in parent when I was barely more than a child myself.

I wish I could grasp the pain tightening my throat and mind. It's always there, this knot in my chest that I can't unravel. It's the quiet after my mother's screaming, when the house fell into that thick silence, and I was left to pick up the pieces. Her pain bled into me, and I didn't know how to stop it. I didn't know how to be her cure, though I tried, God, I tried. I thought if I could be perfect, if I could be strong enough, maybe she wouldn't break so much. Maybe the house wouldn't feel like it was falling down around us every day.

But no matter what I did, it was never enough.

I wish I didn't feel so guilty. So sad. Sometimes I hated her for it. For leaving me to carry the weight of her pain and everyone else's. For never seeing how tired I was, how lonely. I hated her for the times I had to be the one to soothe my brothers and sisters while I was breaking inside. I hated her for turning me into a parent when I was just a kid. And then, when I hated her, I hated myself even more for feeling that way.

I wish I didn't feel so sorry for myself. I don't know when I started believing that I wasn't allowed to hurt, that my pain was smaller, less important. But I swallowed it down, day after day, until it became a part of me, this dull ache that I carried like a second skin. I watched my siblings grow, shielded from the worst of it because I was there to take the blows. And I told myself, It's okay. This is what I'm supposed to do. It's okay.

But it wasn't.

It wasn't okay.

I wish I could forgive myself for everything I've been through. There's a part of me that still feels like I failed—like I wasn't strong enough, like I should have done more, been more. I know it's not fair to think that way, but the guilt lingers, whispering that if I had just been better, maybe things wouldn't have been so hard. Maybe my mother wouldn't have crumbled, and maybe I wouldn't have felt like I was always standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting to fall.

I wish I could hug myself. The child I was... that version of me who cried alone in the dark, the one who thought they had to be strong because there was no one else. I wish I could go back and hold them. Tell them it's okay to be tired. It's okay to be scared. It's okay to cry, because they didn't have to do it all. They didn't have to carry the world alone.

But no one told me that then.

I wish I could tell myself how well I did. I did everything I could. I survived. I took care of them. I kept the world from collapsing. And now, looking back, I realize... I did well. Maybe it wasn't perfect, and maybe I stumbled and fell more times than I can count, but I did well. Even though no one was there to say it when I needed to hear it most.

I just wish someone could tell me I did well. Because sometimes, when the house was quiet and my siblings were finally asleep, I would sit alone, just hoping that maybe—maybe—someone would notice. Maybe someone would see how hard it was. Maybe someone would hold me, just once, and say "You did well."

But no one ever did. Not then.

Just anyone. Even now, after all these years, I think about it. I wait for those words, as if hearing them from someone else would finally let me breathe, would finally give me permission to let go. To stop being the one who always had to hold it all together. I want someone to see me—not just the caretaker, not just the strong one—but the child who never got to be a child.

And maybe one day, I'll hear it. Maybe one day, I'll believe it.

But for now, I sit with that wish, holding it close like the ache in my chest, waiting. Waiting for someone, anyone, to say, "You did well."