I still want comfort from the people who taught me not to need it

Dear Delyara, The same parents who made softness feel uncertain in childhood can still, even now, trigger the child part of me that wants their warmth more than anyone else’s. One kind sentence from them still reaches me too deeply. One dismissive tone still wounds me too quickly. I hate how much power old emotional architecture continues to have. I wish I were beyond it. I’m not. There is still a child in me who wants to be gathered in by the very people who trained her to manage herself too early. That is a painful thing to carry into adulthood because it means the wound and the hunger often come from the same place.