She Loved Them

SHE LOVED THEM

She sits all alone on the floor with her knees tucked under her chin. She thinks about how her mother defined her and her father made her feel expendable. And she realizes they were right. Her friendships are vacant and her child now looks at her the way she once saw her mother- with resentment and scorn.

They loved her once. She was so sure. She poured her heart into them thinking she had found people who finally understood her. But that was not what they wanted. She was allowed to be around but occasionally her presence was too much, her questions too needy and her values unimportant.

Her husband, with whom she once shared laughter and companionship with, was off in his own head. She tried to reconnect but soon realized that he too preferred the anchored side of her. There was no room for her hurt and sadness. It was too disrupting. Couldn’t she just get rid of some things on her plate so she wasn’t stressed?

But the issue was never in doing things. In fact, she loved her family so much, she served them happily. The issue was that they didn’t love her back. She was a fixture to them. A comfortable blanket or stuffed animal that was always available and known. But children out grow blankets or forget to take care of them. They are soon left behind.

She often felt abandoned by those that said they loved her- most often when they were in the same room. But what could she do? She loved them. She could not force them to accept her or love her back for it. She was a prisoner in her own freedom and she hated herself for it. She believed people could love her- love all of her. And now she was seeing she was wrong.