i think the first thing that ever broke me was getting second place.

i think the first thing that ever broke me was getting second place.

not because second place is bad.

but because there was always an alvin.

in kindergarten, there was a boy named alvin. every recognition day, his name would be called before mine. he would stand at the very top while i stood one step below him.

looking back now, i don't even remember what his voice sounded like.

i don't remember what his favorite color was.

i don't remember what games we played together.

but i remember the feeling.

i remember being a child and learning that second place was invisible.

because when i came home with medals, certificates, and honors, there was always a question hiding behind the congratulations.

"who got first?"

and when the answer wasn't me, nothing i achieved felt heavy enough to matter.

so i learned a lesson children should never have to learn.

i learned that being good wasn't enough.

i had to be better.

i had to be the best.

my mother taught me how to read and write.

sometimes she held a pencil in one hand and a hanger in the other.

the lessons weren't only about letters and numbers.

they were about mistakes.

a wrong answer could earn a smack.

a missed instruction could invite frustration.

a small error could change the atmosphere of the entire room.

so while other children were learning the alphabet, i was learning fear.

i learned how to read people's faces before i learned how to read books.

i learned how to anticipate disappointment before i learned multiplication.

i learned that mistakes were dangerous.

mistakes made people angry.

mistakes made people stop smiling.

mistakes made love feel farther away.

when i was still very young, my mother entered me into competitions.

spoken poetry.

english declamations.

performances that required costumes far too big for my tiny body.

i would stand under bright lights with trembling hands while she stood in front of the stage.

to everyone else, she was a supportive mother.

to me, she was a pair of eyes.

watching.

tracking every movement.

every misplaced word.

every forgotten line.

every mistake.

while the audience listened to my poem, i listened to her silence.

while they watched the performance, i watched her reactions.

i wasn't performing for the judges.

i was performing for survival.

and children are incredibly adaptable.

give them enough pressure and they'll mistake it for love.

give them enough expectations and they'll build their entire identity around meeting them.

so i became disciplined.

i studied harder.

worked harder.

pushed harder.

in elementary school, it paid off.

i became top one.

the recognition i spent years chasing finally arrived.

certificates filled folders.

medals hung from my neck.

my name appeared at the top of lists.

teachers praised me.

people admired me.

and for a while, it felt good.

but nobody tells you that perfection is a hungry thing.

the more you feed it, the more it grows.

it never says "thank you."

it never says "you've done enough."

it only whispers,

"what's next?"

"can you do better?"

"what if someone catches up?"

"what if you fail?"

so while everyone else saw an achiever, i was becoming a prisoner.

because every success raised the stakes.

every achievement became another standard i had to maintain.

every victory became something i was terrified of losing.

years passed.

eventually, the pressure from my parents became quieter.

they didn't need to remind me anymore.

their voices had already moved into my head.

i became my own strictest teacher.

my own harshest critic.

my own disappointment.

by the time i reached college, i carried expectations so heavy that i could no longer tell which ones belonged to my parents and which ones belonged to me.

i chose a difficult path.

civil engineering.

as if some part of me still believed my worth had to be earned through struggle.

as if choosing something easier would mean i wasn't trying hard enough.

then life did something cruel.

it introduced me to my limits.

college didn't care that i was top one in elementary school.

it didn't care about medals.

it didn't care about certificates hidden inside old folders.

it didn't care about the child who always got recognized during graduation ceremonies.

college simply asked,

"what can you do today?"

and suddenly, the answer wasn't always enough.

i was exhausted.

i was working while studying.

trying to survive financially.

trying to survive academically.

trying to survive emotionally.

and for the first time in my life, effort didn't always produce success.

i studied and still struggled.

i tried harder and still fell short.

i gave everything i had and still felt behind.

it felt like watching the version of myself i spent years building slowly crack apart.

the panic attacks came.

the anxiety came.

the breakdowns came.

the burnout came.

and worst of all, the shame came.

because when you've spent your entire life believing your value comes from achievement, failure doesn't feel like failure.

it feels like disappearance.

i started grieving a version of myself that never really existed.

the perfect student.

the golden child.

the person who could do everything.

the person who never made mistakes.

the person who was always enough.

and somewhere between sleepless nights, unfinished requirements, and quiet meltdowns, i realized something.

i have spent most of my life trying to earn a love that should have been given freely.

i have spent years running on a treadmill that never had a finish line.

i have spent decades chasing a destination called "enough."

but every time i arrived, the destination moved.

maybe that's why i'm tired.

not because i'm lazy.

not because i'm weak.

not because i'm failing.

but because i've been carrying perfection on my back since i was a child.

and perfection is heavy.

sometimes i think about that little boy standing beside alvin.

the boy who came home with second place.

the boy who thought he had failed because somebody else stood one step higher.

if i could meet him now, i don't think i would tell him to study harder.

i don't think i would tell him to work more.

i don't think i would tell him to chase first place.

i think i would kneel beside him and say,

"one day, you're going to spend years trying to prove that you're worthy of love."

"you're going to exhaust yourself trying to become perfect."

"you're going to break your own heart over and over again because you think your value depends on what you achieve."

"and one day, after all that running, you'll finally learn something nobody taught you."

that little boy was already enough.

before the medals.

before the rankings.

before the awards.

before the applause.

before the expectations.

before the fear.

he was enough when he was second place.

he was enough when he made mistakes.

he was enough when he got things wrong.

he was enough even when nobody celebrated him.

and maybe that's the saddest thing about growing up.

realizing that the person you've been trying so desperately to become was never more deserving of love than the child you used to be.

.....

SUN 06/14/2026 21:55