girls who become useful
i became useful before i became known.
and if you ask enough women, i think many of them did too.
some girls become loud.
some become small.
some become centerstage.
some become invisible.
i became indispensable.
the kind of child adults describe as “so mature” because she learned early that usefulness earns safety faster than need ever will.
i learned how to anticipate moods.
how to read silence.
how to make myself emotionally efficient.
how to become easy to rely on and difficult to fully see.
girls like me grow into women who carry everything.
the group project.
the family logistics.
the emotional temperature of the room.
the invisible labor.
the birthday gifts.
the hard conversations.
the emergency contacts.
the passwords.
the accounting.
the children.
the marriage.
the grief.
the plans.
the backup plans for the plans.
we become women who know how to survive before we ever learn how to rest.
and people love useful women.
until useful women stop functioning.
that’s the catch.
because usefulness is often mistaken for wellness.
just because a woman is carrying it gracefully does not mean it is not crushing her.
i think there are women everywhere quietly bleeding competence.
answering emails while unraveling.
packing lunches while grieving.
leading meetings while dissociating.
remembering everyone else’s medication schedules while forgetting themselves entirely.
and the cruelest part is that useful women are rarely checked on properly because everyone assumes they are fine.
after all, look how much she gets done.
i spent years believing my worth was directly tied to how much pain i could absorb without becoming inconvenient.
how much i could carry.
how little i needed back.
how calm i could remain while actively drowning.
but eventually usefulness becomes a prison.
because once people become accustomed to your strength, your humanity starts to feel like betrayal to them.
the moment you say:
i can’t carry this anymore,
someone inevitably responds:
but you always do.
yes.
that was the problem.