What Wasn’t Mine to Carry

I was listening to a podcast the other night, and at the very end the host said something that stuck with me. She asked listeners to think back to a time when someone was not actually upset with you, but with their own insecurities. A time when someone projected onto you, or felt bothered by your light because they were sitting in their own shadow. She told us to pause and reflect on a moment like that, and immediately I knew exactly which memory of mine surfaced. What struck me most was realizing that these moments do not always come from outsiders. Sometimes the person who feels threatened or insecure is someone within your own family. It’s strange how certain relationships only make sense years later, once you’ve lived enough life to understand people’s insecurities. In my early twenties, during my pre-med grind, I didn’t have that clarity. I was 22, juggling a religious studies major, the entire pre-med curriculum, a part-time job at a nursing home, volunteering, and research. I lived in that constant state of “keep going or you’ll fall behind.” I was exhausted, but I was proud of myself. I was building something. I was becoming the independent person my parents raised me to be, and even though it felt overwhelming at the time, I kept showing up for myself. Looking back now, I can say I earned everything I have today. I am halfway through my second year of medical school and I truly got what I worked for. During that time, one of my older cousins who was 27 then made a habit of commenting about me. Not to my face, but around our extended family. She would tell our younger cousin not to be like me. She mocked how late I studied when she would see my bedroom light on at midnight. She’d say I was “smart, but not THAT smart”. She would imply that I was doing something wrong by taking my goals seriously. I did not understand it. She already had an established career as a pharmacist. I wondered to myself: Why was my name even in her conversations?

I was not there the night most of this came out. My extended family had a Thanksgiving hot-pot gathering while I was visiting my parents. My brothers went. A cousin I am close to later told me everything she had been saying. When I returned home and finally confronted her about it, she did not deny anything. Instead, she said something that at the time felt completely disconnected from reality. She told me that she felt like I walked around thinking I was better than everyone. She said I was too independent and always in my own bubble. She said everything was good for me because I was going to medical school. At 22, that shocked me. I did not even know how to process it. I was not walking around with some inflated sense of myself. I was barely sleeping and constantly racing the clock to get everything done. I was not in my own bubble because I thought I was superior. I was in my own bubble because I was overwhelmed. Back then, all I felt was confusion, and honestly a little hurt. I could not see where her comments were coming from. Now, in the middle of medical school with more life experience, more friendships gained and lost, and more emotional maturity, I finally understand what I did not understand back then. It was never about me.

Her comments were not rooted in who I was. They were rooted in how she felt standing next to what I represented. I was younger and chasing a dream she did not pursue. I was driven in a way that reminded her of choices she did or did not make. I was pouring myself into my future, and she saw that through her own fears and insecurities. That is where the jabs came from. And the clarity I have now is freeing. I did not need to shrink myself then and I do not need to now. Some people project onto you simply because you represent a version of themselves they are wrestling with. This does not make them terrible people, but it also does not make you responsible for carrying their insecurities. What I know now is this. I was doing my best. I was trying to build a life I believed in. And she was navigating her own internal struggles, ones I did not know about and could not have fixed even if I tried. Growing up means letting people have their insecurities without letting them define you.

And maybe the biggest lesson of all is that not every jab deserves a wound. Sometimes it is simply a sign that you were shining in a place where someone else felt dim.