I don’t know how to move on from a life I was never allowed to build.

From the age of 15, I wasn’t just a kid anymore. I was cooking, taking responsibility, helping run the house like it was my duty. While other people were thinking about their future, I was just trying to keep things together at home.

No one really cared about my career. Or my studies in a serious way. It was always just “study enough to be educated” — not to build something, not to become independent, just… enough to eventually get married.

I wasn’t encouraged to work. I wasn’t allowed to build anything for myself.

Now I’m 25, and I have no job, no financial independence, and no real experience. And the worst part? The same world that I was kept away from is now rejecting me because I have “nothing to offer.”

I did fight, in my own way. I’m doing my LLB right now. I held onto something for myself, even when no one else really cared. But it still feels like I’m late… like I’m trying to start a life everyone else already started years ago.

And the irony is — the plan they had for me isn’t even working. I’m 25 and they still can’t find me a guy. So now I’m just… here. Not married, not independent, not settled. Just stuck in between everything.

I still blame them. And I don’t know how to move on from something that shaped my entire life.