Maybe it's time I tell them

I can’t quite believe I’m in a stage of life where I’m letting myself into my partner’s house, putting my things in a bag we are taking on holiday together, editing lists they’ve created, buying joint travel insurance, getting texts from their mum asking what I want to eat for Christmas. It makes my heart explode every time I really sit and think about it. 

All I’ve ever wanted to feel is that I belong. I’ve always wanted to be part of something. 

I can’t help but feel there is something wrong with me that it isn’t with my own family. Am I just selfish? Or wanting something different? Am I trapped thinking the grass is always greener? I always loved going to my friends’ houses. I was always anxious about getting in trouble on the return home, but I always loved the freedom of being somewhere else. 

I still feel like that now. Being somewhere else feels like breathing out.

Everyone else’s parents made me feel like I belonged, like I could sit at their table and be myself. They were just pleased to meet me, to know me. 

And now I have a family that I’ve really only just met, that invite me round for tea, and cook me something especially because they accidentally put butter in the soup. They want to spend time with me and ask how my day has been and they don’t ask me for anything except to be myself. And they say how wonderful I am to my partner while I chat away to their sister. They say how much they like me to their hairdresser. They add me to the guestlist at their friends’ parties. 

I feel welcome here. I feel looked after. I feel accepted.

I don’t know what to do about this. I don’t know how to talk to them about it. I don’t know how to say I feel better over here, I feel better somewhere else. 

I think it’s partly because I don’t know if I’m right. I feel guilty. I feel like maybe I’m wrong. Because what if I am? What if I’m just selfish and butt hurt and I’m oversensitive and I actually just need to suck it up and deal with it. 

Isn’t that what people do? They deal. They get by. 

They resent family get-togethers and feel burdened and they just sort of muddle on through. 

People do it all the time. It’s an age-old joke.

I just don’t find it funny. 

I don’t see a way of getting through this without losing my mind.

I also don’t see a way of them ever understanding my side. 

Part of me knows that no matter what I do, what I try to explain, I will be seen as the villain. 

Ungrateful. 

Rude.

Selfish.

Sensitive. 

Malicious. 

Cruel. 

Unfair. 

I might be all of those things. That’s what makes this so hard. I cannot be absolutely sure that I’m not. I cannot be absolutely sure that I am. So, for now, I tread water in the grey area between. 

I am both a selfish and cruel daughter who wants to cause pain to her parents, and a hurt and tired person yearning for release. 

I’m being squashed by the weight of it. 

I want to stop the world, I want to pause time. 

I want to yell at them and tell them it hurts being theirs. I want to speak softly and hope they understand this is not to make them bruise. I want to run away and never face up to it. I want to fix it and have a wonderful relationship. I want to leave it and never try again. I want to just accept it and somehow learn to not be bothered.

I want to do everything and I want to do nothing. 

But somehow doing nothing is so much worse. 

It feels unfair to feel so much hurt and anxiety and pain and betrayal, and not have them know. 

It feels unfair to know they want to see me and want to be anywhere else. 

It feels unfair to just simply act like I’m fine when I’m not. 

It feels unfair that I have to be the one to do something about it. 

It feels unfair that I know it won’t make any difference. 

It feels unfair that I cry every single time I see them.

It feels unfair that they don’t know a thing about me. 

It feels unfair that I don’t let them in. 

It feels unfair that I have had to keep them out. 

It feels unfair to be writing this at all. 

It feels unfair to feel like I have to.