Sitting across from them tonight, just watching them eat, it felt like the air itself was pressing down, heavy and thick as wet concrete. My dad, his hair going full silver now, and my mom, with those fine lines fanning out from her eyes like cracks in a good glaze – they just looked… smaller. And I kept thinking about the name, the one that’s been chiseled onto every headstone in the family plot for generations. That name, that they both carry, that I carry, but it stops with me. I’m the end of the line, the final brick in the wall, and watching them just chew their food, completely oblivious to this whole silent ending playing out right in front of them, it felt like a cold stone settling in my gut. I mean, it’s not like they ever said anything. Not directly. But the little things, the hopeful comments about "when you have kids" or the way my mom still keeps all those baby clothes packed away in the attic, it’s a constant hum under the surface. A quiet, insistent pressure that makes every family dinner feel like a tribunal. I work, I save, I make my own way – every single paycheque is a tightrope walk just to keep my head above water, to not be another burden. This whole architect thing, it’s not exactly a goldmine straight out of the gate. And here I am, thinking about how I’m failing them on this one crucial, unspoken thing. This one simple thing they probably just assume will happen. Am I the only one who feels like they’re carrying the weight of an entire lineage, just by existing? Like there’s this whole history flowing through you, and you’re the one who’s going to dry it all up? The thought of that name just fading, becoming just another line on a distant family tree, it’s a burning kind of anger. At myself, at the circumstances, at this stupid expectation that I never asked for but can’t seem to shake. It’s like I’m looking at their faces, and then looking into a mirror, and seeing nothing but an empty echo where the future should be.