I WAS RAISED, NOT HELD
There’s a kind of emptiness that grows quietly in childhood, when your emotions stay inside more than they are spoken. I love my mom. I really do. I respect her deeply, and I know how much she has done for me and our family. That love is real and constant. But alongside that love, there is something I have always struggled to understand in myself. It is the emotional dependence I naturally long for, but don’t know how to express or receive in the way I see others experience it. I see people who can go to their parents without hesitation. They go to their mothers for comfort, to cry, to speak freely, to feel emotionally held. And they go to their fathers for reassurance, for that quiet sense of protection that says, “You are safe, I’ve got you.” There is balance in that kind of emotional support, and sometimes I find myself noticing what it feels like to miss both sides in different ways. And I wonder why it doesn’t feel that complete for me. Growing up, I learned independen...