My mother still confuses criticism with closeness

Dear Delyara, She comments on my skin, my weight, my tiredness, the way I run the house, how stressed I sound, whether I’m “letting things slip,” and somehow all of it arrives in the same emotional envelope marked concern. If I react, I am too sensitive. If I say nothing, I go home carrying her words in my jaw. I know she believes she is loving me in the only language she was given. I also know that language still cuts. There is a particular loneliness in understanding someone’s wounds and still being wounded by them.