You are more than what they made you.
You can step outside that role.
Yes, it’s easy and familiar,
but it’s fencing in your soul.

You deserve to seek your passions,
not approval in their eyes.
Let them handle their own feelings
as you break your bounds and rise.

Notes

I wrote this poem as I was reflecting on a book I had just finished reading: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson. Holy COW it is an excellent book!!! I hope to write more about it on here sometime soon. But as of now I’m feeling like this book is my #2 all-time favorite book…
…after #1, which is, of course, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky. (I wrote about it in this post, among others.) My phrase “break your bounds” in this poem is actually a reference to it, as that is one refrain in the book. Here’s one passage containing the phrase:
“There were no plots at the moment of crisis, no cleverness and games in the last resort. The rule in extremis was to decide what was the right thing to do, and do it, no matter the cost to yourself, even if it meant breaking your bounds or changing your role or letting go of your picture of yourself. That was the last resort of Gryffindor.”
— from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
Of course, the “you” in my poem is really me.

In the Notebook