Sometimes I would do something right, only to hear that I should have been doing it all along. Nothing ever felt worthy of celebration. Other times I’d make a mistake, and it felt as though the mistake became my identity instead of a moment I could recover from. I remember hearing the words, “I love you. I just don’t like you.” I didn’t know love and like could exist separately. I only knew one of them felt farther away than the other.
There were days when tears came easily, and there were days when they didn’t come at all. Eventually, I learned to swallow them before anyone else could see. “Stop crying before I give you something to cry about.” So I stopped believing tears were something to be comforted. They became something to apologize for.
From the outside, our home looked ordinary. There were no broken dishes and no shouting loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Inside, however, I became fluent in moods I couldn’t predict. I learned to read silence before I learned to understand it. I learned to scan faces before I learned to trust them. I learned that a room could change without anything in it moving.
There were moments I remembered clearly that someone else insisted had never happened. Slowly, I began questioning my own memory—not because it was unreliable, but because I assumed theirs had to be more trustworthy than mine. When you’re a child, you don’t usually wonder whether the adults are mistaken. You wonder whether you are.
For a long time, I thought strength meant adapting. Be quieter. Be better. Need less. Cry less. Ask for less. Take up less space. I didn’t have words like emotional safety. I didn’t know what walking on eggshells meant because I’d never walked on anything else. I didn’t know that love wasn’t supposed to feel like trying to guess the weather. I only knew that some days felt warm, some felt cold, and I never understood what made the seasons change.
Years later, people would ask when I first realized something wasn’t right. The truth is, I didn’t. At least, not then. I thought this was simply what being someone’s daughter felt like. I thought every little girl listened for footsteps. I thought every child rehearsed conversations before saying hello. I thought everyone believed love could disappear over something they couldn’t remember doing. I didn’t have a name for any of it. I only knew what it felt like.
I hate that I still hear footsteps. Not just my mother’s—everyone’s. I notice the weight of footsteps before a door opens. I can often tell who’s coming by the rhythm of their walk or the jingle of their keys. I know the difference between someone coming because they need something and someone trying not to be heard. For years, I thought everyone paid attention that way.
Now I understand I wasn’t paying attention simply because I was observant. I was paying attention because somewhere along the way, my nervous system learned that noticing everything felt safer than missing something important. That awareness has followed me into adulthood. It helps me read people, anticipate needs, and notice the details others overlook. It has served me well. It has also exhausted me.
Memory is both a gift and a curse. I remember conversations, expressions, and moments with startling clarity. Some memories have become anchors; others have become echoes that return uninvited. They remind me that parts of me are still living in survival mode—not because I believe danger is waiting around every corner, but because my body learned long ago that staying alert was another way of staying safe.
I’m still learning the difference between awareness and survival. I’m still learning that not every sound requires me to prepare myself, that not every silence means I’ve done something wrong, and that not every room needs to be emotionally mapped before I enter it. Some days my mind remembers that before my body does. Other days, my body remembers first.
Maybe that’s what healing looks like. Not forgetting the footsteps or pretending they never shaped me, but recognizing that I no longer have to follow them. The little girl who listened so carefully is still with me. She still pays attention. But now, when I hear footsteps, I don’t brace myself, and I don’t wonder who’s coming through the door.
