​The Mountain in My Mouth

I was raised where the mountain taught us what to fear.

It was always there, right behind the house, like another relative.

Not the nice kind. The kind everybody respects because they’re big and quiet and a little mean.

My family loved that mountain. Talked about it like it made us better than other people. Like it kept us safe. Like it was proof we were built the hard way and that counted for something.

And I bought it. Of course I did. When you’re a kid, whatever your family repeats enough times starts to sound like God.

So I grew up thinking the mountain was holy. I thought silence was strength. I thought keeping your mouth shut was the same thing as being good. I thought love looked like loyalty, even when it felt a lot like fear.

We didn’t ask questions. Or, not the real ones. Not the kind that make a room go still.

You learn that early in some houses. You learn which subjects are safe. You learn when to nod. You learn how to swallow a thought before it becomes a problem.

Then I got older and ended up in classrooms with cheap fluorescent lights and maps on the wall where my whole world looked small enough to cover with a thumb.

That messed me up a little.

Books messed me up too. In a good way, I guess. They kept handing me words for things I’d felt my whole life but never knew how to say.

Shame. Control. Grief. Choice.

That last one really pissed people off.

Because once you learn you have a choice, a lot of the old stories start sounding shaky as hell.

I started realizing some of what I’d been taught as truth was really just survival with better branding. Some of it was love, sure, but some of it was fear passed down so many times nobody called it fear anymore.

Just tradition. Just family. Just the way things are.

Which is a hell of a sentence. “The way things are.” People can bury you with that one and still act like they’re protecting you.

School didn’t just teach me facts. That’s the boring version. What it really taught me was how to name what hurt.

How to say, that made me feel small.

How to say, I know you loved me, but that still did damage.

How to say, this is where I’m from, but it is not the whole story of me.

That kind of learning is dangerous. Not in a dramatic movie way. In a regular life way. In a “you go home for dinner and suddenly hear everything differently” way. In a “you realize half your personality is just old self-defense” way.

I used to think becoming yourself would feel brave and clean. Like a movie. Like running. Like wind. Like some big cinematic bullshit.

Mostly it felt awkward.

Mostly it felt like saying one honest thing and then feeling sick about it for three days.

Mostly it felt like guilt. Like being a bad daughter, a bad son, a bad whatever they needed you to be so everybody else could stay comfortable.

And still— I left. Not all at once. Not cleanly. More like peeling out of an old skin and finding another one underneath that was also scared, just less willing to lie.

The mountain didn’t stay behind, though.

That would’ve been easier.

It’s still in me. In the way I go quiet too fast. In the way I brace for anger when I tell the truth. In the way “home” still feels warm and heavy at the same time.

I still love where I come from. That’s what makes it hard.

I love the people. I love the weather. I love the stupid specific way the light hit the yard late in the afternoon. I love the stories, the food, the old jokes, the way everybody could make something out of almost nothing.

I just don’t worship it anymore.

That’s different.

Now when I think of the mountain, I don’t think of God. I think of pressure. I think of shelter. I think of all the ways a thing can hold you and bury you at the same time.

I carry it in my mouth now.

You can hear it when I hesitate. You can hear it when I say no. You can hear it in every truth I had to fight my way into.

I left the mountain. Mostly.

But it still has a room in me.

And maybe that’s fine. Maybe that’s what growing up is. Not cutting it out. Just finally learning how to speak with all that stone in your mouth.