“Inconvenience.”
“That's all I've ever felt”
With parents that work too much, and very few friends,
“I never got any help.”
As young siblings we hated each other,
The social gap between me and my best friend grew,
“There really wasn't much else I could do.”
“Is there something wrong with me?”
“Do they not like me?”
“But mom, we never do anything together. We don't go anywhere. And there’s nothing to do at home.”
“That's because we don't have the extra money to do anything fun, sweetie. And I’m sorry, you’ll just have to deal with what we have.”
I don't think she knew that all I would have wanted was a walk in the park together, a block from our house.
“Even then, she never had the time.”
“Why does she have to work so much?”
“Am I really asking for a lot?”
I knew I was no normal child.
But it would have been nice if my father would not have acknowledged it,
If he would have played along like my mother,
To not signal me out so harshly when they had a perfectly good son 3 years older than me.
“Why’d they even have a second child?”
“We all know he’s way better than me.”
“He’ll hardly talk to me… I guess he knows it too…”
“Do I matter to them?”
As I got older, I asked my parents for more things. Simple things. They were simple.
“I swear” “I swear”
“They were simple”
”Am I asking too much?”
However, with these requests came harsh answers, harsher than I expected at age 10.
I eventually learned to quit asking, knowing what the answer would be.
Every time I asked I felt that I would only be an inconvenience.
I felt that I would only cause them trouble.
This was the start of a habit.
“Wait, no”
“That’s not it.”
“It was more than that”
”It was life lasting”
It was the start of a whole new section of my personality.
The fear of causing trouble to others.
The fear of people going out of their way for me.
“I can give you a ride home from school if you want?”
“I can pay for your lunch today, it's no big deal”
“No, it’s fine really. I’ll figure it out. It’s fine.”
As long as I don't have to feel any guilt,
I promise I won't accept help from you.
I promise I won't accept favors from you.
I promise I wont cause trouble for you.
Please..
Please,
Please.
“Please”
“Please”
“I can do this on my own”
”I don’t need help”
”My only request”
”Is to please…..”
*Don't let me be an Inconvenience to you.
No matter how much I explain, the people around me never seem to understand that I cannot take things lightly.
And I never knew how to explain this dilemma to them. Even now, I feel as if I have not explained it properly. This topic is nothing light to me. I cannot lighten up. This is how I am. I hope that people around me learn to accept this.
