I remember going to dinner with her family only to meet them in silence. I was recognizing layers of grief congealed from moments of hurt being unspoken to. Discarded in how I used to often question if my intense feelings in this world were irrational. As being at that table with them, I saw how open she could be with her family and brewing in sadness for how far astray I was to anything close to that.
How I am so closed off to my family. How it is so uncomfortable for me to share what is so vulnerably inside of me. I am crying writing this recognizing how silence to my own family was expressing itself in silence to her family. I am crying seeing how I shriveled like a morning glory in the night. How I did not express to them because of how I was afraid of all those moments I have been met with judgment. This judgment that felt like draining death. That what I have shared and who I am needs to be fixed. With advice, consoling, and the medicine of "getting over it". Or even how I should not feel how I am feeling.
And, for me, there is nothing that feels more betraying and shameful than being received as this 'problem' to be solved. As I am comfortable saying that sometimes I would like advice, consoling, and that bitter medicine of maybe I am resting on a self-made cauldron of churning hurt and resentment. Yet, what I so long for is to be witnessed.
To be held in the compassion that means: "I am willing to suffer with you" which is distinct from simply mirroring what I feel. The compassion that also means: "I am willing to be moved by what you express"
I do want to say, though I write about these preferences, longings, and dreams, I also do have a need to be vulnerable. I do find deep fulfillment in being vulnerable. Yet, I still see that to say I am unfulfilled with my family would be to touch the deepest wound inside me.
It would bring me back to that night where I was with my family on vacation and realizing how disconnected we were. Together, yet separate in isolated worlds where I could not even name what my two brothers or father were feeling, struggling with or connecting to.
That night where I did express all that was unfulfilled about yet in a way that did not honor what I was longing for. I was longing for nights where we could be engaged with each other enough so that I could consider them a family of close friends and kin. I was longing for nights where silence and mutual stares would bring me relief rather than unsettling discomfort. I was longing for nights where I could daydream about being with my family, knowing how these moments would soon one day be lost.
I did not know I could express this to your family. I am in deep grief for how even if I did not know, I was still not present to allow for it to emerge.
Maybe it was because I was fulfilled with your family because you still had two parents to be loved by. Maybe it was the presence of your twin that you could so cheerily talk to. Maybe it was just your family and how they so contrsted mine. Maybe it was the inner me realizing how I was mirroring the same silence I gave to my family afraid of receiving again the hurt and distance I have been so met with.
Maybe it was the pain of realiizng how I was creating this confusing conflict on your birthday. And maybe it was the me feeling shame for my silence because I knew it too well. I knew it too well in my childhood where I was never the first one to be talked to and how I then became never the first one to talk.
Maybe it was how I could so easefully feign presence by giving what I so long for. Forgetting that I have the ability to ask. And maybe it was remembering how after my mother passed how I so deeply remembered how she wanted me to remember: "ask and you can be given."
Maybe it was my mother hurt inside me recognizing how I was not connecting to what she saw I so needed.
Because I am realizing that may be who I am now: someone who gives so openly that I do not expect to receive. And how my giving has turned into a restriction: of giving silence because I am no longer expecting to receive compassion or tenderness. Because I thought it was obvious that what I gave: expression of body language, silence, and downcast eyes expressed my need to be received. As that is something that I so notice in others. Something I so notice because I so value expressions beyond words because I have always struggled with them. How I am so fulfilled when someone is receptive to my language of giving. Yet, I recongize how that is not enough.
As I realize that in order for me to step beyond that shallow self, I need others. There is no way around that. And yet, I am sad to say I feel most alone with family.
I connect to something someone once said:
A healthy village requires healthy individuals. And to become a healthy individual, you need a healthy village. They are mirrors of one another, the one supporting the other.
What do I do when all the mirrors have been cracked? All the glass has been shattered? What do I do when I feel comfortable enough to say everyone has left the village to see the city? I do not know. I am willing to find out.