Not My Burden: I Was Never Meant to Carry This

“I am not the vestibule for your unprocessed grief. I am the exit.”

There comes a point in every awakened child’s life when the mythology of family cracks. Behind the cracked frame is a mirror, and in that mirror is you, not them. Your face, your pain, your life, and suddenly, the spell breaks. You realize you were never meant to carry what they handed you with trembling, entitled hands. You were never meant to be the therapist, the emotional sponge, the extension cord for a generational wound that they refused to touch.

The Inheritance That Isn’t Mine

What a cruel joke we’ve played across generations. We say “honor thy father and mother,” but we do not say at what cost. We guilt children into caretaking roles, we demand smiles when there’s silence, we call it respect when it’s actually a trauma loop, and what is “family,” really, if not the original conditioning? The earliest projection screen? The place where most of our parts were born, and many of them got stuck? I loved my dad once in that wide-eyed, helpless way children love, and now that I’m grown, the grief of still wanting him to show up in a way he cannot feels like an invisible hand around my throat every year on my birthday. What do you do with a love that cannot meet you? You redefine what love means!

What If Love Was a Choice, Not a Cage?

I am not obligated to absorb my family's dysregulation. I am not morally bound to forgive what is never owned. I am not a bad daughter because I created a life that doesn’t orbit the family gravity. I am a sovereign being, and that is what terrifies most. The old scripts don’t work on me. The shame flings, the “I did my best,” the “You never call” silence… They don’t land, not because I’m heartless but because I’m awake. I don’t believe in compulsory anything anymore. Not marriage, not motherhood, not family.

What About Chosen Family?

What if family was earned, not assumed? What if the deepest loyalty was to truth and not blood, not guilt, not nostalgia? What if “Dad” was a title you lived into—not one that made you entitled? There are people in my life now who show up more fully than my relatives ever have. They listen, they repair, they see me. And guess what? They don’t share my DNA, but they share my frequency; they are the ones I call family.

This Is Where It Ends

I am the breaker of chains.

I will not become the apologetic daughter.

I will not become the mother who reenacts it.

I will not stuff it down to keep the peace while my nervous system pays the interest.

No more. This is the line. This is the rewrite.

This is the part of the story where I say that I love myself more than the idea of being a good daughter. And if you wanted to be in my life, you’d have done your own healing by now.

Closing Quote

“I am not the keeper of your ghosts. I dance with my own.”

If any of this resonates with you and you would like to work with me, shoot me a message through the contact page.

With Love,

Your favorite soul seamtress