I don't remember being born, of course.But I remember the feeling of it—the way everyone talked about those first dayslike they were trying to protect something fragile.Like the world had to whisper around me.
Mama always said I came into her life like a breath she'd been holding for too long.A soft cry, a tiny heartbeat.Daddy wasn't there for it, though.I didn't know that until later.Kids don't come with memories; they come with stories grown-ups hand them like folded pieces of paper.
What I do remember is the first place that ever felt like "home," even if it wasn't ours.
It wasn't a real house.Not one of those perfect ones with shiny floors and matching curtains.It was my cousins' place, tucked away in that town Mama didn't like to say out loud, because every time she did, her voice would twist a little, like she was chewing on an old hurt.But the people in that house—they treated Mama like she mattered.They treated me like I was something to celebrate, not something to question.
Mama said we stayed there because the trailer she shared with Daddy was falling apart, and she didn't want my first breaths to be in a place that felt like it was collapsing.I didn't know that back then.All I knew was that house smelled like laundry detergent and fried potatoes, and someone was always laughing in the kitchen.
I remember Mama rocking me on an old porch swing that squeaked at the end of every sway.Her eyes looked tired, but not the kind of tired that comes from not sleeping.It was the tired that comes from worrying too much.She held me so close that sometimes I couldn't tell where her heartbeat ended and mine began.
And then, three days later, Daddy finally came to see me.
I don't remember his face that day, but Mama told me the story enough times that it plays like a memory anyway.He walked in quiet, like he wasn't sure he deserved to be there.He looked at me like he was staring at a question he didn't know how to answer.
Mama said that when he held me, his hands shook.Not from fear—but from something heavier than fear.Responsibility.Guilt.Or maybe just the weight of realizing he wasn't ready.
But the thing I remember most from that time—the thing that settled into me deep and permanent—was Mama's promise.She whispered it into my hair every night:
"I'm going to make a real home for us. Just give me a little time."
I didn't understand what a promise like that meant.Not then.But I felt it.The way a baby feels warmth before she knows the word love.
A few weeks later, Mama kept that promise the best way she knew how.
She packed our few things into bags that didn't match.She kissed the cousins goodbye.And she took us to a government apartment in a small town with more stray cats than people.
It wasn't pretty.The walls were thin.The carpet was older than both of us.But it was ours.
And that meant everything.
I didn't see the struggle she carried on her shoulders.I didn't see the nights she cried quietly so she wouldn't wake me.What I saw was this:
A mama who kept trying.A mama who kept choosing me.A mama who showed me that love doesn't have to look perfect to be real.
And maybe that's why—even now, looking back—that little apartment with the flickering kitchen lightstill feels like the first place I ever belonged.