The shattering
All my life, I’ve carried this heavy, invisible weigh, a feeling that no matter what I do, I will always be second best, unlovable, never enough.
I’ve always tried to be the helper. The one who shows up. The one who gives more love than maybe I should, even when it isn’t returned. Especially when it isn’t returned. I try to be kind, thoughtful, selfless, even when I’m hurting. But I’ll admit, I’ve also built walls and armor. Around people who diminish me, I sometimes react brashly, not out of anger, but out of pain. And unfortunately, that’s often all they see.
Yesterday, though, something happened that shattered me to my core.
It came from the one person I’ve spent my entire life trying to win over: my mother.
Her words cut deeper than any blade could. While offering to help an elderly woman, just being kind, as I always try to be, my mother looked at me and said, “No, you scare me.”
I froze. My heart collapsed inward. My soul shattered.
She didn’t say it in anger. She said it as if it were a fact. And somehow that made it worse. Because I have never been anything but kind to her. I’ve bent over backward for her, offering help, affection, foot rubs, kind gestures, conversation, her favorite soda, a home-cooked meal. Not because I have to. Because I want to. Because I’ve always just wanted one thing: to make her proud. To feel like I mattered. Like I was loved.
But I realize now… maybe that will never happen. Maybe it never could.
You see, my mother has looked down on me for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been the outsider in my own family, the square peg in the round hole. The embarrassment. The one who talks too much like my father. Looks too much like him. Reminds her of someone she hated with every breath. And for that, I have become the echo of that hatred.
That’s not a weight any child should have to carry. But I did. I still do.
Yesterday, it finally crushed me.
I don’t write this for sympathy. I write it for release. For others who feel this way and don’t have the words. For those who walk into rooms full of family and still feel alone. For the ones who give their all and still fall short, not because they aren’t enough, but because someone else refuses to see their worth.
Today, I am shattered. Defeated. I no longer chase her pride or her approval.
If you are reading this and you know this kind of pain, hear me clearly:
You are not unlovable. You are not the problem. You are not the embarrassment.
You are someone who has tried, bravely, beautifully, wholeheartedly. And sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is stop trying to win love from those who are unwilling or unable to give it.
I don’t know where I go from here. But I do know this:
I deserve peace. And so do you.
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