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I caught myself stifling the urge to reach out to one of my daughters.
I miss her.
We haven’t been able to properly connect in a while. She’s been consumed by work, and the few times we did speak her voice was stressed and clipped.
It wasn’t the conversation I was longing for.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped reaching out.
I told myself I didn’t want to disturb her.
That I was being considerate. Protective.
But then the dreams started. Dream after dream where I try to reach her. I hear her voice in the next room, but something always gets in the way. I cannot get to her.
My psyche processing a need that I was not acting on during the day.
The dreams brought my need into my awareness and forced me to sit with the question: why am I not reaching out?
And the answer wasn’t what I thought.
It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to disturb her.
It was that speaking to her while she’s stressed and unhappy…didn’t feel good.
I didn’t get the warm feeling of connection I was craving.
And so without fully realizing it, I wasn’t protecting my daughter. I was protecting myself from disappointment.
That’s when I thought of my mother. She almost never reaches out. It was always me and my sister who initiated.
When I asked her why, she’d say she did not want to interfere. That she knew we were busy.
I remember that it annoyed me. It felt like she wasn’t offering herself. Like she was available only to receive, never to initiate.
It didn’t feel like care. It felt like absence.
Sitting with my own pattern, I saw that my mother may have been doing the same thing:
Not protecting us from her intrusion.
Protecting herself from what she might feel if she reached out at the wrong moment.
Yes, there it is: a quiet erasure. A pattern passed down without a word.
The decision, made somewhere below my awareness, that my need was less important than the risk of discomfort. That it was safer to disappear than to reach out and not receive what I hoped for.
Relationship requires investment.
It requires showing up even when it’s uncomfortable.
And it requires being led from within.
Honoring your own needs and desires so you can bring yourself into the relationship, instead of silencing or losing yourself.
I realized I have a choice.
I do not have to erase myself the way my mother did.
I don’t have to wait for the perfect moment.
I can reach out.
Even if it’s inconvenient.
Even if it doesn’t feel perfect.
Even if I don’t get the response I want.
Because I can stay with what I feel.
I want to love my children loudly.
I want to make sure they never have to wonder how I feel.
And if I call at the wrong moment, they’ll tell me.
And if they are short or stressed, I can handle my own discomfort.
Because my love is that big. That strong.
And maybe this is how something changes: not in the big, dramatic moments we imagine, but in the small quiet choices.
In the message we send.
In the call we make.
In the moment we choose not to disappear.
Connection is not always damaged in big moments.
It’s lost in the small ones we avoid.
And perhaps repair begins the same way.
~
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