On the worst word in the English lanugage: Obligation
I happened upon this quote by Rachel Macy Stafford the other day (scroll down), and it literally took my breath away. I read it over a few times, digesting it, and felt a validation that I had never felt before. I wish so much that I could have read it 10, 15 years ago. (for more on the full back story, scroll back to my July 2020 posts...) It spoke to the years I spent trying to please others, trying to fit in, trying to tread lightly and create harmony and weakly explain myself. All the while navigating my own survival amid my own family turmoil. Barely holding myself up while navigating the fallout from my parent's abrupt divorce, my mom's painful illness, my sibling's prison sentence, taking food to my cousin while he battled addiction all while I had to turn around and attend a function so far removed from what I had just witnessed and so lacking in basic concern that it still blows my mind--but I continued to go, to attend events with gifts for all, to hold my tongue