Incredibly, being an adult feels so much harder than being a kid had. Nobody hits me, or yells at me anymore. I have access to food that doesn’t list sugar as the main ingredient. I have a friend. But a switch was flipped when my parents died. The world was a lot bigger and scarier now, and sometimes I longed for the quiet, secret darkness of the space behind the couch where I’d hide when my parents were at their worst. Sometimes, I wished for the ability to fold myself up, smaller and smaller and smaller, until there was barely anything left.
