Tsunami

Fifth grade, safety patrol belts hug tight to our chest, the feeling of pride as we cross the stage into middle school. We thought we knew what it meant to be a grownup. To be old, and all knowing. 

We didn’t.

With my ear pressed against the bathroom wall, listening to my parent's conversation, I heard it all.

The pain, the betrayal, the hurt. I heard my future crumbling before me, tightly locked within the hands of another mistake. 

The fighting. It seemed so foreign, so raw, and so wrong. It couldn’t be my parents, not them. Yet as I listened to the tears, the yelling, it was so close and rooted. These problems weren’t foreign, they were right here, and I had to deal with them. 

I realized I was no longer young, innocent, and full of mysticism when my parents fighting was my burden to carry. I knew I no longer could enjoy simple pleasures with no consequences, when it was my duty to shield my brother and sister from the pain I heard through the walls.

It was thick and heavy, but so were my tears.

Some would say, “it isn’t your burden…”, “It isn’t your problem”. But I knew those truths, and would think one sinking thought, “but it also is not my sibling's burden”, “it isn’t their problem”.

So young and full of promise, my siblings could be spared this all-too-fast growing up, even if I faced the brunt of the pain. 

I took a tsunami, baring all of my parent's emotions and anger and pain, so my siblings could only play in the tidal pool of love and blissful ignorance that their young age granted them.

I knew I was done growing up, when the burden of someone’s actions, defined my future.