Their Love Still Feels Partial to Me

Dear Delyara, I know my parents loved me. I also know some parts of me were never fully welcome in their presence. Both things are true. They loved the capable version. The respectful version. The surviving version. The version that made sense to them. But my fear, my anger, my confusion, my softness, my need for emotional language — those parts often had nowhere safe to land. So now my relationship with them contains a constant ache: gratitude for what they gave, and grief for what they didn’t know how to hold.