I don’t feel known in my own house

Dear Delyara, That is the sentence I hate most because it sounds ungrateful, and I don’t mean it that way. I am seen in practical ways all day long. People know where I am. They know what I usually remember. They know I’ll answer if asked, help if needed, carry if required, soften if the room gets tense. But being known like that is not the same as being known where it matters. I can move through a whole evening with my family — dinner, conversation, television, homework, bedtime — and still feel like nobody actually noticed who I was that day. Not the tone in my voice, not the tiredness under it, not the fact that I had less in me than usual, not the loneliness that was already sitting there before dinner started. That kind of loneliness is very hard to explain because from the outside I look surrounded. Inside, I often feel untranslated.