My Mother Said I Only Care About Myself Until I Canceled Everything I Was Paying

and thought: I have no idea who I am when I am not solving someone else’s problem.

Not as a dramatic realization. More the way you notice, mid-sentence, that you’ve been mispronouncing a word your whole life. A quiet, internal correction with no audience.

The same logic had governed every request I had ever agreed to. The logic that said: You can, so continue reading …