PART 1 — THE ROOT

For most of my life, I mirrored my mom because that’s who I grew up around.

Her mannerisms, her reactions, her strengths, her wounds… I carried all of it.

And in the process of becoming who she needed me to be,

I hid the parts of me that came from my dad.

I don’t know if this is healing or identity or both,

but lately I feel myself channeling him.

The way I look off-camera when I smile.

The carefree energy.

The quiet confidence that shows up in my photos without me even trying.

And the more I step into this version of myself,

the more I understand him

his trauma, his wounds, his heart.

See… my dad’s story didn’t start with him.

His mother gave him away but kept her other kids.

Imagine what that does to a child.

Imagine what that child grows into as an adult.

That’s not a “flaw.”

That’s trauma that’s been passed down before he even had a chance to become himself.

And it didn’t stop with him either.

I watched the same generational pattern show up in my siblings.

My older sister, who I used to look up to so much, loved me out loud

until my light got too bright for her comfort,

and suddenly she dimmed herself and disappeared.

My older brother, who also battles severe mental illness basically vanished completely.

And my aunt told me something I will never forget:

“Baby, that’s just how this family is. Everyone is a little “touched”. They celebrate you until you start shining too bright.” It’s trauma that’s been passed down, an unspoken “secret” that everyone was aware of but never addressed publicly.

It’s not cruelty.

It’s a wound.

A generational wound that dresses up as personality,

masquerades as distance,

and disguises itself as “that’s just how we are.”

I didn’t choose any of this.

But I am choosing to understand it.

Because you can’t heal what you won’t acknowledge,

and you can’t break what you won’t name.

This is the root.

The part of the story nobody likes to talk about.

The dirt you have to dig through

before you can grow something new.

And if this first part hit you already?

Just wait.

Because Part 2… whew, that’s where things get personal.