Coming Home.

I used to think we all wanted the same thing, to feel seen, to feel safe. But I’ve learned some people speak survival in silence, and I speak it in asking why? When I sit at the table, I can taste what wasn’t said. And the gravy thickens around the grief. You laugh too loud, they flinch too quickly, and suddenly, we’re all five years old again, just in grown-up skin. I want to fix it. To open the windows, let some light in, say the hard thing without breaking us. But healing isn’t a language we all learned the same. Some bury, some break, some just pretend they’re full on empty plates. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe just being here is a kind of trying. Still, some nights, I leave with a full belly and a heavy chest, wondering if they know I’m trying to love them in a new way they didn’t ask for. And I realize, coming home is not always the same as feeling home. But I go anyway. Because love, like grief, is not always clean. It just wants to be carried.