The Part That Still Hurt

There’s a version of me that still exists somewhere underneath all of this.

Not the grown woman who can process, reflect, and make sense of things… but the little girl who just wants to be held and told everything is going to be okay.

And if I’m being honest… she’s been loud lately.

Because no matter how much I’ve worked to understand where it all started, it doesn’t take away the feeling of what I didn’t get.

I’ve fallen apart more times than I can count in my life. And in those moments, the only thing I’ve ever really wanted… was her.

Not answers.

Not explanations.

Just her.

And that’s a hard thing to carry when the relationship you have is inconsistent at best.

It comes and goes.

Like seasons.

Like time itself.

Months of silence. Then moments of connection that almost make you forget the distance… until it’s there again.

And I tell myself, over and over, if she wanted to, she would.

But that doesn’t make it hurt less.

What makes it heavier is knowing there’s a story behind her. A version of her that was shaped long before me. And somehow, I feel like I’m healing from things that didn’t even start with me.

From wounds I didn’t create… but still carry.

And that weight?

It’s heavy.

There’s also this quiet comparison that sits in the background.

Watching her have a relationship with my sister that I’ve never had. Seeing what that closeness looks like… and realizing I don’t know that version of her.

I don’t know what it feels like to be loved like that by my own mom.

And that’s a different kind of ache.

Because it makes you wonder what was different. Why it wasn’t you. Why it couldn’t be you.

And now… it doesn’t just affect me.

It affects my girls.

Because they don’t have that relationship with her either. And that breaks something in me I don’t even have words for. They deserve that kind of love. That bond. That connection. The kind most girls just grow up with.

And I hate that I can’t give that to them through her.

Tomorrow, she’s coming to a family session with me. And I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never done this with her. Never sat in a space where things might actually be said out loud.

Part of me hopes for something different. Something better.

And part of me… Already knows the pattern.

Knows how this has gone before. Knows how it might go again.

So I’m sitting here in between both of those things. Hope… and history.

And maybe that’s where I am right now.

Not healed. Not hopeless.

Just… here.

~Tj🩷