Draft / identity processing

I was not a “little adult.” I was, if anything, a late developer — the kid who loved toys into adolescence, who played in the sandbox until twelve, who preferred drawing to chores, who found magic in solitude.

I wasn’t burdened with responsibilities. My parents wanted us to help on the farm — but I wriggled out of chores whenever I could, except for hauling firewood, which no child on earth has ever avoided.

This matters, because it reframes my story:

I wasn’t forced to grow up too fast. I wasn’t carrying adult duties on small shoulders. I wasn’t emotionally parentified.

Instead, I was given space to dream, even in a house full of work. That’s a privilege many children never get.

If anything, my adult life is now devoted to reclaiming that dream-space in a world that expects perpetual maturity.

Maybe the mythic realms I build are the adult continuation of that long childhood I treasured.