i don’t want to explain why home hurts
is it wrong, or somehow unfair, to admit that a part of me wishes the love of my life isn’t that close to their family?
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i grew up feeling left behind, always in the corner, always unheard. i know that kind of pain doesn’t simply disappear when you grow older. it stays with you, quietly shaping the way you love, the way you see yourself, and the things you learn to accept. but i also know that the way someone grows up doesn’t wholly define who they become or excuse the choices they make. we can choose to be different. we can choose to be kinder, to be more self-aware, to break the patterns we inherited. but to be honest, it is kind of hard.
i think someone who grew up in a healthy household will never fully understand what it feels like to grow up surrounded by rage, where love feels conditional, where affection feels like something you have to earn, and where being loved can sometimes feel more like an obligation than a gift. they may understand it in words, but they will never know what it is like to carry those wounds into adulthood, to crave the very kind of love that once made you feel so small.
so, yes, perhaps a part of me wishes the person i love won’t be too family-oriented. perhaps i want someone who understands that family isn’t always a safe place to return to, someone who knows that sometimes, we have to build our own home because the one we were born into never quite felt like ours. maybe that’s where we’ll meet, in the parts of ourselves that had to learn how to survive before we ever learned how to be loved. and perhaps two people who carry similar wounds can learn to love each other in ways they were never taught, not by fixing each other, but by choosing to be gentle where the world once was cruel.
doesn’t we always say that to be loved is to be understood? perhaps there is something tender about finding someone who doesn’t need you to explain why certain things hurt, someone who knows that sometimes, the word family is complicated, that going home doesn’t always mean finding peace. maybe two people who grew up longing for a different kind of love can recognize that longing in each other and finally feel a little less alone. and maybe, together, they can build the kind of home they spent their whole lives wishing they had, one where love is never something to earn, silence is never mistaken for peace, and neither person has to wonder if they deserve to stay.
