My mother struggled her whole life to feel worthy of her children. Self-doubt was her companion in a way I didn't fully understand until I got older. I used to watch it settle into her — not dramatically, but slowly, like weather moving in. It sank into her bones sometimes. I had enormous empathy for her and also, quietly, the sinking realization that some of what put it there came from us. From me.
I paid attention to that. Not because I was particularly wise. Because it was hard to watch someone you love carry something that heavy. Especially as I saw it accumulate over time.
I think about her more these days...
I guess this is what parents sign up for — though nobody tells you that clearly enough at the beginning. You love with everything you have, and it still goes sideways. Your best intentions still land wrong. You make the wrong assumptions. You impose. You overstep. You say the thing you thought would help and watch it do the opposite. You fumble, and then you fumble your recovery of the fumble. The gap between what you meant and what was received can feel impossible to close.
What I didn't understand when I was young — what took me embarrassingly long to learn — is how much damage I caused without knowing I was causing it. How many times I was the weather moving in on someone else, moving them ever closer to their wall.
My father told me once, quietly, that he was disappointed in me. I had been untruthful and he knew it. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't lecture. He just said he thought more highly of me than what he'd seen. That was all.
It felt like a kick in the gut.
I held onto my resentment for a day or two. I tried to justify myself, to build a case, to be the wronged party. I was good at that. But eventually the case collapsed because it was made of nothing, and what was left underneath was just the plain fact that I had let someone down who loved me. It took a minute. But I got there. And I got better because I wanted to get better.
A brother of mine once came to me with something he'd found out — behavior of mine that embarrassed him. I wanted to disappear. My first instinct was defensiveness, then shame, then the old question: who gave him the right? But he hadn't come to wound me. He had come because he loved me enough to say the uncomfortable thing. That distinction, between someone who wants to hurt you and someone who loves you enough to risk hurting you, took me a long time to learn to feel.
A friend once told me I was too sarcastic. That people couldn't tell when I was serious. That it was landing as disrespect even when I meant it as warmth. I was genuinely shocked. I thought I was being funny. I thought it was charming. It took me a long time sitting with that one to understand what he was actually seeing — that sarcasm, however playful the intention, can make people feel like they don't deserve a straight answer. That it can be a way of saying something cutting while claiming they didn't know so they can't be accountable or blamed. That over time it erodes the very trust you think you're building with humor. I remember an apology tour that lasted about a year with friends that had been targets.
I didn't like what I saw when I finally looked clearly. I still don't, on the days I slip back into old patterns.
But here is what I am grateful for: that they told me. That my father, my brother, my friend — none of them stayed silent to keep the peace. None of them decided I wasn't worth the discomfort of honesty. Their love came disguised as something that didn't feel like love at first. It took me time to unwrap it.
I am sorry it took so long. I am sorry for what that slowness cost them.
I don't have a tidy ending for any of this. I'm not looking for one today. Feeling a little lost but finding some comfort in the fact that I simply don't have the answers.
What I know is that love is not always recognizable in the moment it arrives. Sometimes it comes as disappointment quietly spoken. Sometimes it comes as a mirror held up by someone who didn't have to bother. Sometimes it comes as the willingness to stay in the conversation even when the conversation is hard. What is true is that everyone annoys everyone sooner or later. There isn't a domain where there isn't pain or discomfort. It doesn't exist. So, like in a movie I just saw recently, a separated couple finally came back and asked each other:
"I want to be unhappy with you. Let's be unhappy together."
I could easily replace "unhappy" with "annoying". I got things wrong. I still do. I am trying to see that clearly — not to punish myself with it, but to let it make me more patient. More humble. More willing to hear.
My mother carried more than she should have. Some of that was ours to carry for her and we didn't know it yet.
I think about her more these days...
I hope whoever reads this thinks about someone too. Someone who loved them in a way that didn't feel like love at first. Someone who was trying, imperfectly, stubbornly, to close the gap between what they meant and what was received.
The wall is real. Every parent hits it.
What I am still learning is that the wall is not the end of the story. It is just the place where the easier version of love stops working, and something harder and truer has to take over.
I'm not there yet. But I'm still trying to get up.
Just not today.
Today I will sit with my back against that wall and think about Mom more these days...
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