I'm listening to a 5 year old logically sifting through deductions about our current financial status being unacceptable to her lifestyle and calmly explaining to Papa how to rectify that.
I can't imagine winning a debate with this child by the time she's 10.
In the meantime, I'm imagining the slow banging of my head on a metaphorical wall that I know I purposely ran into prioritizing being someone else's support system at a cost that is taking a long, slow toll on my sanity, and yet I savor the decades long irony of me being the one still here making it all work after the years long emotional beating I took standing up for what is the right thing to do.
Two children remain uncorrupted into adulthood on my watch because I exist. A third will hopefully make it now, as well.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
