My Carbon Copies

I love them more than anything. There is no one on the face of this earth that is more important to me than Daniel and Dazeem. They're my flesh and blood, I've been there from the day they were born. They are growing up to act just like boy versions of me. They look like me. They look up to me. They do the same things I used to do, even down to bad things like lying and getting punished or being passive aggressive. Dazeem is developing a sharp wit that suprises me everyday. He's starting to get cleverer than I am. Daniel is a year away from high school. He is a little selfish like me and reasons the same way I used to. Its crazy its like watching myself grow up all over again from a 3rd person perspective. I just want them to live happy lives and be worry-free. I want to spoil them and see them succeed. It tears me apart that I can't be there like I want to. I have to balance school and multiple sets of friends and finances and my health and being 19 and social expectations and just everything and at the end of the day its not enough left over for them. I do what I can but I don't spend enough time with them, I don't spend enough of my money on them, I don't even help them in school like I'd like to. I feel helpless like they're just growing up without me and are getting used to me not being there. I just wish they knew how much I cared. I know they would think its sappy if they knew I had mini breakdowns over being inadequate.

I know they have Grandma and everyone but I'm supposed to be there too. I'm not supposed to be so absent. If only I were older. If only I were taller, more charismatic, more powerful. I'd be better. Its hard to describe mentally and spiritually I feel like a mother and a father and an older sister to them all at once. Idc what nobody thinks I can't change that bond its not like I decided it to be that way it just is. I don't expect people to understand so I don't take offense when people say things like "they aren't your responsibility just relax a little". They are my responsibility; they are not a burden. No I didn't carry them in my womb, but yes our genetic variation is 50%, yes I was present during my moms pregnancy with both of them, and yes I am the only person in the world who can say that. I'm the only one who was there when they were infants and they used to cling to my leg when they barely could walk. I chose bean's name. I taught both of them how to read. WTF like how could anyone expect me to feel any other way about them? They're my carbon copies.