hinarladean

I wonder if your familiar with this experience... The scroll that gives you a break from your reality. The glass of wine that isn't really about the wine. The shopping cart that always fills, or the delivers that arrive and you can't remember ordering. The cigarette you didn't even want but your hand somehow ended up with. The way your fingers through your phone without awareness to social media. The snacking that stops when the box is finished. We've been taught to see these moments as...

There's a thought that keeps so many relationships holding their shape long after the shape has stopped being true. The thought goes something like this: if I stop reaching, if I stop bridging the gap, if I stop being the one who softens and adjusts and holds the whole thing together, it will all fall apart. So you keep reaching. You play the role your partner needs someone to play. You become the regulated one, the flexible one, the one who understands, the one who doesn't ask for too much...

Before any of us had language for want or need, we had a body. And that body was already learning, long before we could name it, what was safe to reach for and what wasn't. So many of us grew up in homes where children were meant to be seen and not heard, where a want voiced too plainly got called greedy, or too much, and a need voiced too plainly got met with irritation, or silence, or something worse. As children we took what was offered, what was allowed, because that was the only version...