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Surviving both of my mothers changed the way I learned to love. To be loved, I folded myself small. I learned silence like a second language. I smiled when I was breaking. I swallowed tears until they burned. I was yelled at for feeling, so I learned how not to feel at all. Love, to me, meant shrinking. Love meant surviving. But this is a new era of my life. I am unlearning survival and relearning love. There are friends who chose me through every version of myself. Friends who include me. Friends who want me. There are sisters who lift me without asking why I’m heavy. Sisters who listen to the same story again and again and never ask me to be smaller. So maybe I never received the motherly love I craved. But because of that, I will become it. My children will never question my love. They will never fear my voice. They will never rehearse their words before speaking to me. I will replace guilt with grace. I will replace fear with safety. I will replace silence with warmth. I will break the cycle. And all the times I was broken will become the reason they never have to be.
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Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 3:47 PM UTC
renaissance
Surviving both of my mothers changed the way I learned to love. To be loved, I folded myself small. I learned silence like a second language. I smiled when I was breaking. I swallowed tears until they burned. I was yelled at for feeling, so I learned how not to feel at all. Love, to me, meant shrinking. Love meant surviving. But this is a new era of my life. I am unlearning survival and relearning love. There are friends who chose me through every version of myself. Friends who include me. Friends who want me. There are sisters who lift me without asking why I’m heavy. Sisters who listen to the same story again and again and never ask me to be smaller. So maybe I never received the motherly love I craved. But because of that, I will become it. My children will never question my love. They will never fear my voice. They will never rehearse their words before speaking to me. I will replace guilt with grace. I will replace fear with safety. I will replace silence with warmth. I will break the cycle. And all the times I was broken will become the reason they never have to be.
a long one, but i needed to write this
Written by
18/F/domain expansion
Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 3:47 PM UTC
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