a love letter...
... to first-born daughters
dearest first born daughters,
you are not only the custodian of legacy.
you are the author of your own becoming.
fear may walk beside you but it does not have to lead.
expectation may whisper in your ear but it does not have to own you.
you are not here only to be the family’s promise.
you are here to be your own kind of miracle.
lay down the armor.
maybe take the crown off for a moment.
step into the life that was meant for you:
a life that feeds you back.
a life that remembers your name.
a life that does not ask you to trade fulfillment for praise.
because you are not just what you carry.
you are what you create.
you are what you choose.
you are what you dare to claim
when no one is watching but you.
“you’re her big sister. she’s going to…”
i stopped before allowing myself to finish the sentence.
i was in the midst of scolding my oldest daughter who was standing tall and sassy and gentle at six years old. sunlight still clinging to her cheeks from outside.
i was repeating something that had been repeated to me more times than i could ever count growing up.
a phrase i quite literally hated to hear. a phrase that made it seem like i carried the weight of my siblings’ mistakes. that their choices were somehow extensions of mine. that my example was some sort of prophecy.
it was a weight i could not bear to carry. and a weight i told myself i would never place on my daughter.
because the truth was simple here: she was teasing her sister. she was being six. she was being a child.
it did not matter that she was the older sister. it mattered that we practice kindness. that was it.
and yet, the unfinished sentence lingered in the room like a familiar ghost.
you are her big sister.
as if that meant:
be better.
or be more steady.
or be the blueprint.
i don’t remember the exact moment the weight was placed on my shoulders. i only remember knowing what was required of me. i remember how heavy my mistakes felt because “your younger siblings are watching.”
i went to college not because it felt aligned but because i would be the first. i would set the example.
i kept my head down. i endured. i finished.
my degrees are not badges of honor or badges that i wear with pride today.
but they are proof of how deeply i believed that being the oldest meant being the first. even when i wasn’t sure i wanted to.
motherhood softened something in me that achievement never could.
after my first daughter. after the c-section that forced me to be still and take it easy. my body demanded what my spirit had been asking for all along: rest.
by the time my second daughter arrived, the armor was almost completely removed. for the first time in fifteen maybe sixteen years, i was not working.
and instead of panic, i felt free.
i felt like my life belonged to me.
as i sit and write this essay, i realize how motherhood awakened in me an unwillingness to pass down exhaustion and unrealistic expectations.
in that moment, standing in my kitchen, almost handing my daughter the same invisible contract i had signed decades ago, i felt something holy unfolding.
an interruption.
a choice.
the divine opportunity to give her what i so deeply craved:
affection. understanding. room to be a child or a teenager without it meaning more than it needed to.
she is her sister’s big sister.
but she is also just a child.
and that is enough.
blessings
may you lay down the invisible contracts written in rooms you were too young to negotiate in.
may you untangle responsibility from your worth.
may you discover who you are when you are not managing anyone else’s expectations.
may you rest as if it belongs to you.
may you choose from what it is you desire and dream.
may you live without bracing for expectation.may the daughters you raise, biological or spiritual, inherit freedom and ease.
with love, anisah is a free newsletter. if you’d like to support this sacred offering, please consider subscribing and sharing. if you would like to connect with more of my work, my poetry collection and journal are available for purchase on my website. follow me on ig: withlove.anisah, for IRL opportunities. i am grateful for your support in all capacities.
