i’m sitting here in my apartment in chicago and the sirens are going off outside like they always do at 2am and i’m looking at my retirement papers and i just want to scream because i’ve been reading papers like this since i was eleven years old and i think it broke something in me that never got fixed. i was just a kid and i had to tell my dad that we were going to lose the heat if we didnt pay the back bill and i had to explain what "arrears" meant when i couldn’t even spell it right myself. my mom used to sit there at the kitchen table with her hands folded and her eyes just following my lips like i was some kind of oracle or god or something but i was just a little girl in a hello kitty t-shirt. she’d push these thick envelopes across the table—those yellow ones with the clear windows that always meant trouble—and her voice would get real quiet and she’d ask me "what does it say mija" and i’d have to swallow the lump in my throat and pretend like i knew what a subpoena was. i remember this one time we went down to the city building and it was so loud and crowded and everyone was rushing and we had to stand in line for hours just to talk to some guy behind glass. my dad was holding his hat in his hands and he looked so small and he was the strongest man i knew but next to that white man in the suit he looked like nothing and i had to be the one to speak up. i had to use my "english voice" which was higher and clearer and i told them we didn't understand the notice and the man just sighed and rolled his eyes like we were a waste of his time. i wanted to CRY i wanted to just sit on the floor and cry but i couldn’t because if i did then who was going to help my dad get the permit for his truck? i was eleven and i was his lawyer and his secretary and his shield and i hated it. i hated it so much it makes my stomach turn even now just thinking about that smell of old paper and floor wax. it wasn't just the big things it was everything—the phone company the landlord the doctor who spoke too fast and looked at his watch like we were clogging up his day. i’d be at school trying to do my math and all i could think about was the letter from the bank that said something about "default" and i didn't even know what that meant but i knew it sounded like the end of the world. i spent my whole childhood being an adult and now that i’m actually getting old and supposed to be done with it i feel like i never even started. i never got to just be stupid or messy or let someone else take care of it because if i didn't do it the lights went out or we got kicked out of the apartment on 24th street. i missed the school trips and the birthday parties because there was always another form that needed an explanation or a phone call that only i could make. i think about my friends now and they talk about their childhoods like it was this golden time of playing tag and summer camps and i just nod and smile because how do i tell them i spent my summers in the back of a social security office? i’m almost sixty and i’m still translating everything in my head like i’m waiting for the next disaster to drop in the mailbox. i see my parents now—they’re gone now—but i see them in my dreams and they still have those envelopes and i’m still eleven years old and my hands are shaking. they were good people but they leaned on me until i snapped and they didn't even notice they were doing it. they just thought i was "smart" but i wasn't smart i was just scared of what would happen if i failed. i feel so much GUILT for being angry about it because they worked so hard and they came here with nothing but a suitcase and a dream for me but the dream felt like a weight around my neck every single day. they didn't have anyone else and i was their only bridge to this world and i hate that i resent them for it. i should have been a better daughter and i should have been happy to help but i just wanted to go outside and play with the other kids who didn't know what an insurance premium was. i feel like a bad person even saying it out loud but i feel like they stole my life before it even happened and i’m sitting here at 59 years old wondering when it's finally going to be my turn to not have to explain everything to everyone. and now i’m looking at my own retirement stuff and i’m so tired of reading the fine print. i’m so tired of the legal talk and the "heretofore" and the "pursuant to" and i just want to throw it all in the trash and move to the woods where nobody talks to me. the city is too much and the rent is too high and the cost of living just keeps going up and i feel like i’ve been running a marathon since 1975 and i’m still at the starting line somehow. i worked and i worked and i did everything right and i still feel like that scared kid at the kitchen table wondering if the check is going to clear. i never got to be young. i went from eleven to fifty-nine overnight and i don't know where the middle went. i remember my dad trying to learn and he’d have these little flashcards with pictures on them but his tongue just couldn't make the sounds and he’d get so frustrated he’d throw them across the room and then he’d look at me and apologize. it killed me to see him like that. he was a king in our village back home and here he was a guy who couldn't even read his own water bill without his daughter’s help. i had to tell him once that his boss was cheating him on his hours and he just stared at me for a long time and then he told me to never mention it again. he was too embarrassed to fight it and i had to live with knowing he was being robbed and i couldn't do anything but translate the theft for him. people talk about legacy and what you leave behind and i think about what i’m leaving and it’s just a bunch of files and folders. i never had kids of my own because i think i was done being a parent by the time i was eighteen. i’d already raised my mother and my father and i didn't have anything left in the tank for a baby. i missed out on so much and for what? just to keep our heads above water in a city that doesn't care if you drown or not. i look at my bank account and i look at these papers and i just feel empty. like there's no "me" inside this body just a translator who's out of work.