I’ve been holding the house up with both hands since I was old enough to reach the light switch. Since I learned that love, in this family, comes disguised as labor. They say eldest daughters don’t cry, we coordinate, we clean chaos into routine, we turn breakdowns into bedtime stories. We are the quiet gravity that keeps everyone else from floating away. But lately the walls are starting to lean back. And I’m realizing: the weight I carry isn’t legacy, it’s limestone crushing, sacred, and somehow still called duty. They call me strong. But strength isn’t always a compliment. Sometimes it’s a curse word disguised as praise. Sometimes it means: you never got the chance to be soft. I want to be soft. I want to wake up and not feel like my worth depends on who I save. I want to choose myself without guilt elbowing its way through my ribs whispering Selfish. You’re becoming selfish. But tell me what’s more selfish? Finally healing, or bleeding in silence so everyone else can call you selfless? I’m tired of tucking my needs under the family rug. Of mistaking survival for success. Of calling burnout devotion. So maybe this time when they call, and I don’t come running, I’ll whisper: I’m not abandoning you. I’m just choosing to stop abandoning myself. And if that makes me a disappointment, then maybe that’s what freedom sounds like the soft exhale of a girl finally letting go of the weight that was never meant to be hers.