Finding the Girl Within

She grew up in a home with two parents.

To anyone looking from the outside, it may have seemed like an ordinary family. There was a mother, a father, children, a home they shared, and a life they built together. But as she grew older, she began to notice something she could not quite put into words.

She never really saw love between her parents.

It wasn't that they were not together. They were. They were in the same home and raised their children under the same roof. But she rarely saw the kind of affection that made a child look at her parents and think, So this is what love looks like.

She didn't see many affectionate gestures between them. She didn't often see her father helping her mother with the responsibilities of the home simply because he wanted to make things easier for her. She didn't see many of those small moments of tenderness that children quietly learn from.

Instead, she watched her mother carry many of the responsibilities around the house.

At the time, she didn't know that she was learning something about love from what she saw.

And perhaps even more from what she didn't see.

As she grew older, there were moments within the family that made her question relationships even more.

One of those moments happened when she was still young, somewhere around her primary school years. She cannot remember the exact year anymore. What she remembers clearly is the day her mother was made to feel that she might no longer have a place in the home.

The disagreement began with something that seemed small.

Her grandmother had woken up early one morning and washed the dishes. Later, her mother noticed that although the dishes had been washed, they were still not properly clean. She addressed it, pointing out that the dishes were still dirty.

What may have seemed like a simple household disagreement became something much bigger.

Her grandmother cried.

The matter was taken to her father, and eventually her mother was called into a family meeting. Her father and her grandmother's older sister were there too.

She watched as her mother was confronted about what had happened.

And then her mother cried.

She remembers that moment more than she remembers the exact words that were spoken.

She was still a child. She didn't know what she was supposed to do when she saw her mother crying. She didn't know whether she should speak, comfort her, defend her, or remain quiet.

So she watched.

Sometimes children don't understand the meaning of what is happening around them. They simply remember how those moments made them feel.

She remembered her mother crying.

She remembered the tension.

She remembered the feeling of watching someone she loved hurt and not knowing how to make it better.

There were other things she noticed as she grew up.

Even family vacations didn't always look like the peaceful breaks she imagined they were supposed to be.

Whenever the family travelled, her mother still carried many of the responsibilities she carried at home. Instead of simply resting and enjoying the trip, she would wake up extremely early, sometimes around three in the morning, preparing food and making sure everyone was taken care of.

There were pots to worry about.

There was cooking.

There were meals to prepare.

There was always something that needed to be done.

She watched her mother continue working while everyone else was supposed to be enjoying the holiday.

As a young girl, she couldn't explain why this stayed with her.

She only knew that when she imagined love, she imagined something different.

She imagined two people helping each other.

She imagined someone noticing when the other person was tired.

She imagined someone saying, “Let me do that for you.”

She imagined affection.

She imagined being cared for without having to ask.

But those were things she mostly imagined.

She didn't yet understand that the absence of something could create a longing just as strongly as having experienced it could.

So she grew up with questions.

What does it mean to be loved?

What does it mean to be chosen?

What does it mean to be cherished?

And perhaps the biggest question of all:

What is love supposed to feel like?

She didn't know that these questions would follow her into the next chapters of her life.

She didn't know that one day she would search for the answers in other people's arms, in other people's words, and in relationships she hoped would finally give her what she had been longing for.

She didn't know that being chosen would become so important to her.

She didn't know that, in trying so hard to be loved by someone else, she would eventually lose pieces of herself.

At that age, she was simply a girl trying to understand love.

A girl who had grown up surrounded by people, yet still carried a quiet longing for something she couldn't name.

A girl who wanted to experience the kind of love she had spent years imagining.

And she had no idea that her search for that love would eventually lead her away from herself.

Nor did she know that one day, she would have to find her way back.