My Mother Screamed That I Had an Iceberg Where My Soul Should Be and Slammed the Door Hard Enough to Rattle the Photos — I Stood There Waiting for the Guilt That Always Came, and for the First Time in Thirty-Two Years, It Never Did

“I’ve got you.

And I need you to hear me, even if you can’t understand me yet, because I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it true.

Nobody is ever going to use you.

Nobody is ever going to teach you that love is a debt you have to keep paying.

Nobody is going to make you feel like you owe them your whole self just for having been born.” I rocked her, and I made her that promise, and in making it to her I understood I was also, finally, making it to the small girl I had been — the one who had learned so early that her worth was measured in what she could provide, who had grown into a woman who mistook being useful for being loved.

I could not go back and unmake that girl’s lessons.