To be the eldest daughter in an unorthodox situation of an Asian household. A witness to your nurturer’s karma has come crashing down with no way for me to save them from themselves. This buried intuition I chose to mistake as my own mental imbalance with overthinking paved the way of rational thoughts into secular sections of innermost hidden feelings my younger self had subconsciously suppressed came with time as a shock to my psyche — igniting neural pathways between future realizations with past memories that’d been overlooked or withheld in secret. By presenting itself more obvious than before, I can unbiasedly recognize repeat offenders and the nuances of their actions. Cycling through lessons but never applying newly learned concepts highlight their same old mistakes only to prove there was a chance for growth had the individual not been stubborn in their unprogressed ways.

Their way of guidance led me down their similar broken path, reminding me of a notion — the blind leading the blind. I want to give the benefit of the doubt because I view their person as a lost child who wants to help but can’t muster their courage and ethics to know how. I don’t want to blame all of my life’s faults on a waning nurturer like I had been used to when the upheaval in their upbringing is justified until aged confessions curdle into excuses that decay any future potentials. I don’t want to believe their teachings have been lost on my siblings yet I see them raised based on the same patterns that failed me, a sameness in our differing childhoods. The instinct to guide my brothers and sisters may sometimes go overboard because I learned from a young age to raise them too. We’ve each a story of our caregiver who instead prioritized their own freedom and fear of missing out, never truly reliable nor a stable nurturing gaurdian in our lives as we all watch as they neglect to water their potential and the importance of a grand presence in our lives overall — it pains me to see all over again. This inadvertently raised hyper-independent strong women, my brother DariYan included while I see that life’s forcing this individual to be immersed more than ever with each of her sons. No new change for their new kin, again transfers their overwhelming onto those around them leading to a slow loss seen within their actions of unreciprocated support. Opportunism is something they had to rely on by default. In my power, my brothers and sisters will never go homeless if circumstances go awry. For as long as I’m physically here to support and lead my sisters and trans-brother. There’s a need to be here for my brothers if I can help it because that’s what big sisters are for right?