The Weight of Being Needed

A personal narrative that reflects on the unseen beginnings and where motherhood, memory, and responsibility quietly intersect with a harsh truth. It explores the discomfort of visibility, the weight many parents carry without naming, and the longing for spaces that ask nothing of us but presence.

written by Marial Leisge

It was during the Spring 2025 Nature Guardian meeting that this feeling began to surface.

I received a handful of thoughtfully affirming texts—messages celebrating Ocean State Kids and the foundation I had built. The words were generous and kind. I felt touched. I felt motivated to keep going. And yet, threaded through all of that was something else entirely: shame. Unworthiness. A quiet but heavy sense of pressure.

I brought this to my therapist.

Why do I hate being too visible?

Too “in charge”?

Why does being placed on a pedestal make my body recoil?

Why have I never truly felt like I was leading this journey?

What I unpacked that day was deeply personal—rooted in a truth I hadn’t fully named before.

When I was a freshman in high school, I played varsity softball. Center field. Second-string pitcher. I suspect it was my long arms—not my skill—that earned me a spot. I didn’t enjoy team sports, and my performance reflected that. I was a highly sensitive….well, horseback rider. I worked alone. Rode alone. Won or failed alone. Team sports were never my language.

That truth followed me into adulthood in ways that make running a nonprofit… complicated. (Ahem—asking for help.)

I kept playing softball through the anxieties of high school because my dad was always there. Cheering—loudly. Unconditionally. No matter how poorly I played.

“Go Mack! You’ve got this, Mack!” The nickname he used then—one my son now carries as his middle name.

Most of my childhood memories of my father are quieter. A contractor. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. A blue-collar man raising five children. Often tired. Often carrying the weight of responsibility in silence. But on that field—watching me fumble through women’s high school softball—he was joyful. Fully alive.

It felt mystical. And it felt like a responsibility I could never set down.

I told myself: If I keep throwing strikes. If I stay bored in center field. If I don’t quit—he stays happy. If I dropped my glove and chose ceramics or creative writing instead, I would be choosing his sadness.

Somewhere along the way, I decided his happiness was my responsibility.

It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it?

My father was incredible. Generous. Loving. He loved his family with his whole heart. And yet, I carried the belief that lightness could only reach him through me.

That belief didn’t disappear with adulthood—it simply changed shape.

I used to call it my “three-year itch.” After three years in a job I thought I loved, once my role became essential—once my skills were needed—I would retreat.

You actually need me? Ew. No. I quit.

Motherhood shifted something fundamental.

I could hold responsibility. I could be the preferred parent. The steady one. The conduit to joy and safety. Maybe because it’s instinctual. Maybe because my son feels like magic. Like a miracle.

Or maybe because he demanded that I look inward, again and again, to understand my own patterns of fear, visibility, and worth.

The questions grew louder:

Why am I doing this?

Why am I investing so much of myself into Ocean State Kids?

What happens if it fails?

If things change?

If I disappoint everyone?

I believed I would be responsible for everyone’s disappointment.

But that isn’t true.

If this mission fails, I am not responsible for anyone’s disappointment.

I am responsible for myself.

And for my son’s well-being.

And here is what I know—deeply, unquestionably true:

Ocean State Kids has become the foundation for something my family truly needs.

Community.

One that grows alongside my child.

One that feels safe, understanding, spacious.

A place where we can walk into a room, or into the woods, or a karate studio, and feel our shoulders drop.

Relief. Recognition.

No standards to meet. No pressure to perform. No obligation to participate in order to be valued.

We can arrive (or leave) exactly as we are. Without explanation. Just be.

And that is why I keep showing up.…

Why I keep dreaming bigger.…

Why I continue to pivot in order to strengthen the foundation.

Because this is not just an organization.

It is a living definition of safety.

It’s childhood…where both parent and child want to exist, but also return to, again and again.