Useful Enough

Dear Delyara, I built my whole life around being useful. Helpful daughter. Reliable friend. Responsible employee. The one who keeps it together. I thought that if I was useful enough, nobody would leave me. But now I’m tired. Not physically. Deeply. The kind of tired that comes from living too long in a role that was never really you. The truth is, I don’t even know whether people love me, or just the version of me that asks for nothing. That thought has broken my heart more than once.