The Girl You Never Had to Worry About

and what she's been carrying

Little by Little is a weekly letter about becoming a better person.

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I have an excellent resume.

Oh, I’m not talking about my professional work - this is my resume as part of my application for The Girl You Never Have to Worry About.

Experience

PERFECT CHILD - 1995-2017

• Spearheaded good-behavior protocol in household, driving Family Name Reputation across multiple schools and extracurricular programs.

• Managed a team of two siblings and assisted in the daily workings of a household.

• promoted to Big Sister twice within 4 years.

• Maintained the peace by Doing Without Being Asked, Knowing When to Be Quiet, and Not Causing Additional Stress.

• Achieved a nearly perfect GPA throughout high school and never once drank, did drugs, or snuck out of the house.

• Pioneered every big life event as First Child.

GOOD STUDENT - 2000-2017

• Successfully achieved status of A Pleasure to Have in Class.

• Created personal study guides from scratch for every class to maintain a 4.0 GPA.

• Active member of several clubs, including Vice President of International Thespian Society (lol.)

• Cultivated group of Good Friends from Good Families, successfully avoiding Getting in With A Bad Crowd.

SUPPORTIVE WIFE - 2024-present

• Champion a nearly-10-year relationship with a goal to increase team-building by 25% in the next year.

• Successfully implemented Cool Girlfriend Initiative by being a good sport, increasing favorability of family and friends by 20% each year.

• Implement organizational systems in household for smooth daily operation.

• Coordinate appointments for household, including two dogs, with the goal of expanding to children in the next ten years.

• Streamline paperwork and household accounts to enhance efficiency.

• Support team through calendar management, travel-booking, and correspondence.

• Cultivate emotional connection by suggesting dates, leaving cute notes, and being present for emotional support.

MODEL EMPLOYEE 2012-present

• Orchestrate Reliability Campaign, tripling reputation within the first year.

• Design and execute Positive-Attitude strategy across email and in-person channels.

• Cultivate amiable partnerships with management while being equally terrified of authority.

• Remain quiet and adapt to anything, letting any issues rot inside of me.

SPECIAL SKILLS:

• managing others’ emotions

• attention to the little things

• playing Peacemaker

• being “nice”

• following rules to a fault

• always knowing the answer to “Do you know where ____ is?”

…am I hired?

The truth is, when I look at this resume, I am proud. I’ve always been deemed responsible and level-headed. Smart. Someone to look up to. I know my worth. But in between the praise and the accolades sits a sort of loneliness I didn’t realize I carried, a peach-pit wedged under my sternum.

Once you become The One They Never Worry About, you learn to turn the volume down on your own issues, for it would just add to the chaos. You hold your pain quietly, neatly in your lap because it’s not a good time, and you’re really good at Reading the Room. You bury your wounds because you’re the responsible one, the older one, the organized one, and it all might fall apart if you show your cards. So you push it down. You neutralize. You get quiet when you’re supposed to and pick up the pieces without being asked and clean it up when they won’t and take more than your share of the blame and absorb the anger and shove it farther down down down.

Until.

Until one day, your dog pees on the carpet and the bottom drops out from under you.

Until one day, you can’t get out of bed.

Until one day, you can’t take one more second of anything.

And you look around, and you’re no longer sure who you’re living for. Who you’re trying so damn hard to get a gold star from. Resentment is threatening to poison you. It seems impossibly exhausting to live up to your own standards, let alone the standards placed on you by others.

You realize: Your body is revolting - you cannot go on in this way any longer.

It’s no one’s fault that you ended up this way - you just rose to the occasion, again and again. So when you decide to Do Something Different and abandon the role you’ve always filled, people will be unsure what to do. You aren’t reliable in that sense anymore. Those who assumed they could count on you to once again pick it up, manage it, hold it all - they’ll be angry with you. They’ll try to guilt you. You were supposed to be The One They Never Had to Worry About. The one that never made a fuss. But don’t let that deter you. You must do this for your survival.

You aren’t selfish for taking care of you first. You are only responsible for what you say - you are not responsible for what they hear instead. You cannot control what they project onto you, but you can remain loyal to your feelings. You’ve been the steady one long enough, it’s your turn now. Raising your expectations isn’t a sin. You are not too much. You are not too sensitive. You are not a burden.

Little by little, you will start to recognize what is and isn’t your responsibility. What is in your job description, and what you can separate yourself from and elevate to someone above your pay-grade. In becoming stronger, you’ll learn to drop the weight. You’ll learn how to disappoint people and be okay with it. You’ll be able to honestly share your feelings and not absorb what is thrown back at you. You will feel calm, even in the midst of chaos. Safe, regardless.

And even though your resume is stacked, know that it does not make You. You are not loved solely because you could hold it all.

You deserve everything good, simply by being here.