We don’t get to say we are not good for nothing.

I don’t get to say that I’ve done more for this house when no one can see it than you will ever notice, but you constantly get to tell me I do nothing. You will notice when it’s six p.m. and I’ve just come home and the floor needs sweeping, and you will say ‘you never do anything’; you will never notice when I have swept, and tell me, ‘I’ve noticed, thank you’.

I don’t get to say that I’m trying. You get to say I don’t care about you because you’ve never seen what I’ve been doing. You get to say I never cared about anyone but myself. You get to say I don’t try. 

When you need someone to be available to buy groceries, or buy stuff from the hardware store and have to lug it in a plastic bag all the way home if I can’t get a car, you will ask me to do it.
And if something happens along the way, it will not be because some things happen along the way - it will be because I am a failure, and I do not care about you.

I do not recall the last time you ever thanked me for doing what you asked me to do.
I do recall several times that you told me that I did not do things that you asked me to do, even - sometimes especially - when the fruits of that job being done promptly and effectively are right in front of you.

I don’t get to tell you that you told my sister to leave the house. I don’t get to tell you that she said you did, and I asked you, and you said yes. I don’t get to tell you that she and I did more for this house when you were at work and could not see it than you will ever do for this house for as long as the youngest of us can live. I don’t get to tell you what I’ve scrubbed and swept and mopped and wiped clean just for you to notice that I am not good for nothing.

I don’t get to tell you that I do not - and cannot - simultaneously sleep all day, go out all day, and watch TV, eat, and surf the internet all day. I don’t get to tell you that just because I haven’t got a job yet doesn’t mean I have not been trying so passionately to get one. I definitely don’t get to tell you that I’ve been trying so hard in part to prove to you that I am not good for nothing, and in part to leave so I can stop feeling like I have to prove to you that I am not good for nothing.

I don’t get to tell you that I care about you. You get to tell me that I don’t care about anyone but myself. You get to tell me that I hate you and spread rumours about you. You get to tell me, even, that I did not love my grandmother - the woman who did more to show that she cared for me in my primary school years alone than you were able to in my entire life.

For those who don’t notice if at any point in the future I get less lenient with these things:
that’s that shit I don’t like.

I am no longer going to settle for people totally discarding what I have done. I am not going to settle for liars. I am not going to settle for people who want to make me feel guilty for trying my hardest and seeking to be a better person without their consent. I am not going to settle for people who want so badly for me to feel like I have done something wrong when I have not. I am not going to settle for people who say they care about me and prove it by trying to belittle me and make me think I have to do more for them in order to prove that I care or that I am worthy of love.

I am worthy of love. If you don’t know that, then it’s because you are prepared to give me a droplet-love and make me feel guilty for knowing I deserve more than that, when I want a tsunami-love; and I will no longer settle for droplet-loves.

The next time someone says they care, I will call them out on telling me that I do not do enough to show how much I care, instead of asking those select few who don’t deserve me why they treat me the way that they do. I will call them out on telling me I do not do what I am asked, instead of asking the others why they do not value my efforts. I will call them out on praising people for cursing and slandering me but telling me that I am being cruel by simply telling the truth and demanding the respect that I deserve.

I will no longer allow people to walk all over me. I will step out of the way.

And the first step to sticking to that plan is acknowledging that if I have to step out of the way of family first in order to escape being mistreated, I will walk away,
and just like everything else I have done,
you will never notice.