​Between Where I Came From and Who I Became

I used to think education

would make me better.

Like cleaner.

Smarter.

More whole.

I didn’t know

it would make me hard to come home.

Where I grew up,

nobody said things straight,

but everybody knew the rules.

You don’t question your parents.

You don’t talk about what happens in the house.

You don’t come back different

and expect people to be happy for you.

Then I left

and started learning words

for things I had felt my whole life

but never knew how to name.

Control.

Shame.

Fear.

Silence.

The way love can get twisted

into something that looks holy from the outside

but feels bad in your body.

That was the first real crack.

Not in my family.

In me.

Because once you can name a thing,

you can’t really pretend it’s not there anymore.

And I came home different.

Not better.

That’s not even the right word.

Just different enough

that the house noticed.

I talked different.

I asked questions.

I paused too long before agreeing.

I didn’t laugh at the same parts anymore.

And nobody said,

wow, you’ve grown.

It was more like

who do you think you are?

Which, honestly,

is a brutal question

when you’re in the middle of finding out.

I think that’s the part people don’t say enough:

sometimes learning doesn’t feel inspiring.

Sometimes it feels gross.

Like betrayal.

Like peeling your own skin back

and then having to sit at dinner

and pass the potatoes

like you didn’t just realize

half your childhood was built on things

nobody wanted named.

I used to think becoming yourself

would feel powerful.

Sometimes it does.

Sometimes it feels like

you ruined your own life

by noticing too much.

Because the people who loved me

also taught me things

I had to unlearn to survive.

And that is such an ugly thing to admit.

I still hate saying it.

I still love them.

That’s the problem.

It would be easier

if I didn’t.

But I do.

I love them,

and I can see them clearly now,

and those two things do not sit well together.

Education gave me a way out.

It also gave me

a new kind of loneliness.

The loneliness of sitting in the same kitchen

with the same people

and realizing

you don’t know how to be small enough anymore

to make everybody comfortable.

I thought learning would open doors.

It did.

I just didn’t know

some of them would close behind me.

Anyway.

I’m grateful.

I’m angry.

I’m still figuring out what I owe

to the person I used to be

and the people who only know that version of me.

Education saved me.

I believe that.

But it also cost me

the simple version of love.

And I miss that sometimes,

even knowing it wasn’t really freedom.