But they were not those people.

And I could not keep exhausting myself trying to turn them into that family.

Now, my mornings belong to me.

Part 3:

My apartment is quiet. My phone does not control me. My money stays where I choose to put it.

Sometimes I still drive past my parents’ house. It looks the same from the outside. In winter, there will be candles in the windows and a perfect table inside.

I will not be there.

Not because I was thrown out.

Not because I am punishing them.

But because I finally understand the difference between being loved and being used as infrastructure.

They called it carrying me.

I called it keeping the lights on.

Now their lights are their responsibility.

Mine are still on.

They always were.

I was just too busy powering everyone else’s life to notice my own.