Sometimes you just… you look back, you know? And it’s like a different person lived that life. A whole different life, not even yours. I’m thinking about the general store, the old one, before the Walmart came in and just swallowed everything up. Mrs. Gable, bless her heart, she was always there, behind the counter, weighing out dried beans and asking about your mama. And you just… you wanted to be like everyone else, getting the penny candy, not holding a stack of papers that looked important but just meant more confusion. More worry. Every single day, every day. You remember the feeling, don’t you? That heavy weight in your chest, like a cinder block sitting right there, pressing down. It started so young, this… this *burden*. You’d be eleven, maybe, and your parents, they’d hand you these envelopes, all official-looking. And you’d have to sit there, at the kitchen table, the linoleum cold under your elbows even in summer, and you’d have to figure it out. What did ‘delinquent’ mean? And ‘arrears’? Just… you’d look up from the electric bill, or the water bill, and their faces, they were always so hopeful. So trusting. “What does it say, *mija*?” they’d ask, their voices soft, a little anxious. And you’d have to translate. Not just the words, but the *implication*. The consequence. It was like performing an emergency appendectomy with a dull butter knife, you know? Just fumbling through, trying not to make things worse. And the legal documents, oh Lord. I remember one time, it was about a property line dispute with old Mr. Henderson, down the road. Everyone knew him, a gruff old coot, but mostly harmless. Except when it came to his hydrangeas. And suddenly, YOU are the conduit for these stern letters, these legalistic threats, these demands for ‘equitable resolution.’ You’re reading words like ‘easement’ and ‘encroachment’ and you’re trying to make sense of them for two people who just wanted a little peace and quiet after a long day in the fields. And you’re just a kid. You’re just a kid trying to understand why a rose bush matters more than… than anything else. You couldn't just say, "It's about the hydrangeas." No, you had to explain the *jurisprudence* of the thing, somehow. It wasn't just the words, you see. It was the *power differential*. The cognitive load of being the only one who understood the language of the bureaucracy, the language of the system. You’d have to go to the bank, sometimes, with them, and stand there, a little sparrow in a grown-up world, explaining why a check bounced or why they couldn’t get a loan for a new tractor. And the bank teller, she’d look at *you*, not your parents. You were the one with the answers, the one who held the key. It’s a strange thing, to have that much… that much responsibility. That much *agency* when you’re still counting the days until summer vacation. That’s a heavy cloak for a child, it really is. And you never really… shook it off. That feeling. That sense of being constantly on high alert, anticipating the next official envelope, the next call from the utility company. Even now, you know? The mail comes, and there’s still that little jolt, that echo of the old dread. Like some sort of conditioned response, a somatic memory. You see a bill with a red stamp, and a part of you still wants to just… run and hide. It changes you, that kind of upbringing. It just… it makes you see the world a certain way. Permanently.