Arthur’s Dailies – 17th JuneJournal Entry: The Protector and the Duvet
I sat in front of a chair today. Placed a photo of my mother on it. And I spoke to her.
It wasn’t some grand ritual. It was quiet. Real. I told her something I’ve never really said out loud:
That I’ve been hard on myself for a long time. Because I didn’t want to add more to her plate. Because I saw how much she was carrying — and so I carried everything else.
But the thing is… no one really asked what was on my plate. So I held it in. All of it. The night terrors, the surgeries, the weight of moods, of brothers, of trying to be the glue in a home that was cracking quietly.
And eventually, it snapped.
Like yesterday, when the cleaner put the duvet inside the sheet and I couldn’t find it — and I lost it. That wasn’t about the duvet. That was about the part of me that kept everything in until it didn’t make sense anymore. That was the boy who never got to say:
“Hey, I’m scared. I’m confused. Can someone hold me?”
I told my mum today that I had held this supressed truth around the misunderstanding of the duvet since I was around 8 and that it needed to come out the way it did. I forgive myself and relieve myself off of the guilt. Not as some poetic act — but as a rebalancing.
Because I realise now: the presenting problem is never the problem. The duvet isn’t the duvet. The rage isn’t the rage. The loneliness isn’t the loneliness.
It’s the voice underneath that never got to speak.
I also placed a photo of little me on the chair. And I told him: You are not alone. We are building something so true—so full of love—that this void you feel will become the very portal through which others find themselves. You have me. And soon, so many more. You did so amazinly well for all that you were going through, that you didn’t want to be a burden on your parents, even when you were going through so much.
And then I spoke to the part of me that goes zero to a hundred. That gets angry. That rides fast. That says, “We have to move or we’ll get swallowed.”
I thanked him.
And I asked him — gently — if he might like a new job. Not to lash out. But to protect with love. To tap my shoulder before I overflow. To remind me when I’m carrying too much.
He didn’t say much. But I felt him shift.
So here we are. Mum. Me. The protector. The child. All sitting in the same room. All learning a new way.
And maybe that’s why I’m writing these Dailies. To make sure the unheard gets heard. Before it shouts.
Because I don’t want to live from silence anymore. I want to live from rhythm.
And today, for the first time in a long time… I feel in rhythm.
— Arthur
