Date: April 20, 2025

Author: Emily Rodriguez

For as long as I can remember, I’ve lived under this unspoken cloud of perfection. It’s a strange kind of pressure, the sort that starts small — little comments here and there, the “You’re the smart one” or “You’ve always got everything figured out” kind of remarks — and before you know it, you’ve built your entire life around the idea that you have to get everything right, all the time. Not just for yourself, but for everyone around you.

I’m 29 now, the youngest of my siblings, and for the first time, I’m starting to realize that I’ve been living someone else’s version of my life. I moved out recently, and I had no idea how unprepared I was for the reality of adult life. It hit me hard. No one tells you how difficult it is to be truly independent, how terrifying it feels to know you can’t rely on anyone the way you did before.

The more I go back to visit my family, the more I notice things I didn’t before. It’s like I was living in a fog, and now the veil has lifted. I wasn’t treated the same as my siblings — I don’t think I ever was. I was always expected to do more, to be better, to make up for whatever “mistakes” the older ones made. It’s a lot to carry, and now that I’m on my own, I feel it in every corner of my new life. There’s this emptiness that follows me around, this nagging feeling that no matter how hard I try, it’ll never be enough.

And it’s not just my family. It’s my friends too. They’ve all got their own lives, their own routines, and I’m just this afterthought. I can count on one hand the number of friends who remembered my birthday this year, and even then, it felt half-hearted. It stings more than I’d like to admit. I’ve always been the one who tried to be there, who remembered the smallest details, who kept track of the things that matter. And yet, when it’s my turn to be remembered, it’s like I don’t even exist.

I guess I’m starting to realize that I’ve been chasing a version of myself that’s been created by everyone else. And now that I’m on my own, I don’t know who I am anymore. It’s like I’ve built myself up into this image of perfection, but I’ve never actually learned how to live for myself. The weight of those expectations is suffocating, and I don’t know how to let them go.

Maybe that’s what adulthood is about — unlearning all the things you thought were right, and figuring out what you really need. I don’t know yet, but I can’t keep pretending that I’ve got everything under control. Because honestly, I don’t. And that’s okay.