There is an age when you stop being watched so closely.
Adults still look at you, but they no longer see you. They assume you understand things now. They assume you know where the lines are, even if no one ever clearly drew them for you. That was the age when silence started answering questions I was too afraid to ask out loud.
I learned early that quiet could be useful. If I didn't explain myself, no one could correct me. If I didn't confess, there was nothing to forgive. Silence became a room I could hide in — one where my thoughts echoed but no one else heard them.
This was when I began noticing the gap between who I was and who I pretended to be.
At school, I learned how to perform versions of myself that felt acceptable. The obedient one. The funny one. The detached one. Each role came with its own rules, and I followed them carefully. It was easier than risking the confusion of being honest. Easier than admitting I didn't always recognize myself in the mirror.
I started to feel things I didn't know how to name — resentment disguised as independence, loneliness mistaken for strength, curiosity that leaned too close to danger. I told myself everyone felt this way. That this restlessness was normal. That it would fade if I ignored it long enough.
It didn't.
I crossed my first real boundary during this time. Not because I wanted to hurt anyone, but because I wanted to feel something undeniable. Something that proved I was more than the quiet observer of my own life. When the moment passed, I waited for guilt to arrive immediately.
It came later.
That was another lesson time would teach me too late: consequences don't always knock right away. Sometimes they wait until you've convinced yourself you got away with it.
At home, conversations felt rehearsed. I answered questions before they finished being asked. I learned which truths created tension and which lies maintained peace. I chose peace — not realizing it came with a debt I would pay in fragments of myself.
I remember thinking, This is temporary.That someday I would explain everything. That there would be a right moment to be honest.
But moments don't wait for courage. They pass quietly, and take their chances with them.
Looking back now, I don't blame that version of me.They were learning survival without a guidebook.They were trying to grow without knowing what parts of themselves to protect.
Still, this was the chapter where innocence didn't break —it slipped away, unnoticed,leaving behind a silence that would follow me for years.