Too Late?

My entire time here I've had things held over my head. Not by one person, but by many.

I get upset when it comes up—appalled, really—because how do they not remember? How do they not know that I'm not used to living like this? By myself. Without family. Without my lifelong friends. Without just about everything I knew?

How do they not remember I don't know how to do this? I don't know how to be this poor. I was the one most people turned to for help. I had an open door policy drilled into me since childhood, and I would rarely turn someone down. Anyone who walked through my door had to make a plate—there was always enough food for everyone.

How don't they realize I didn't pay my utilities so I could clothe a child that wasn't even mine? Multiple times.

How don't they know that when I'm finally done—pushed as far as I can be pushed—I won't look back?

How do they not see that I'm smaller, not as tall, hands not as big, arms and legs not as long? That I don't know how to swallow my pride? That asking for help is something I used to not be able to do?

That before here, I was never "alone" or "by myself"?

That different types of saws aren't common sense to me, just as roux, base, or binary code isn't common sense to them?

That my life consisted of 2nd and 3rd shift hours, that I succeeded and excelled best when shit hit the fan (for reasons unknown to me). I've never had a hard time getting a job. I never had my utilities turned off (except once for a mere day when identity theft really let all the shit hit all the fans).

And then I remember—this too is my fault.

The walls, the bricks so carefully placed to not fall, can't even be deciphered by me, the creator. Then I also remember that my beliefs, my values are not everyone else's.

And it is my fault, as well, that I am treated the way that I am. I've allowed it.

I've put people on pedestals they may not have deserved, pedestals they did not put me on. I've sat on the sidelines, patiently waiting and allowing. I didn't set boundaries until it was too late. I didn't think of myself until it was too late.

And I didn't realize how far I had pushed, and had been pushed, until it was too late. Too late to set boundaries.