Column two was speculative, but not fantasy. That distinction mattered to me. It was not a dream life. It was a documented possibility. If my trust had been disclosed at eighteen, I could have gone debt-free. If the educational distributions had been used as intended, I could have accepted unpaid internships. If I had known I was not one bad semester away from financial panic, maybe I would have taken more risks. Applied elsewhere. Studied abroad. Chosen internships for advancement rather than salary. Built a different network. Entered adulthood not already exhausted from proving I could survive it.
Every line in the second column was a quiet form of mourning.
And beneath it all sat the ugliest realization of all:
My parents had known.
Not vaguely.
Not emotionally.
Not in the hazy way families “know” certain truths without acknowledging them.
They had known in statements and schedules and legal obligations.
They had watched my life bend around scarcity they themselves had helped manufacture.