On Being Known

Previously posted on TinyLetter

Friends,

I wrote the following in a moment of being In The Feelings last week. I let myself sit with these words for a while, letting them work their way through my body and mind, and discovered something on the other end of them:

I’m currently laying down on a bed at my cousin’s house in San Antonio, Texas. We have been either in Austin or San Antonio (but always Texas) for seven days now. I’m so tired and I’m ready for my own comforts, routines, and mundane again.

It has been a full decade since I’ve been out here last. It was pre-Brendan, and to some degree, the version of Me now. It wasn’t until yesterday that I made the realization of why I don’t take off from my life to visit here: I am but a blip.

See, my dad lives in Texas. It is where I was born and where he stayed. Our relationship, much like with my mom, has had its ups and downs and all-arounds. Thankfully, therapy has taught me how to swallow the discomfort to remain a functional adult. However, the reoccurring theme I’ve always seemed to draw is this feeling that I don’t matter. The words I share, the feelings I have toward and for, the musings that want to relate – none of it has seemed to matter to those who’ve raised me. 

In some strange way, I’ve always felt like an island. 

Where I’m bringing this home to is this: my dad, as 34-year-old Bre concludes, hasn’t cared to know me. I think I have known this at varying degrees throughout my life with him. While here, he has barely made time to visit or spend time with my son. And much like I’ve learned before in therapy, I swallow it. Because … I cannot let it swallow me. My fear is that I’ll let it consume me, leaving me to believe that I truly am unknown. Or I’ll become a bitter person who feels so victimized I cannot see outside of myself. A nightmare. But what this trip has taught me is I can actually just know and befriend myself, and be OK with that. It’s a self-love empowerment I feel pushed toward. 

As I’ve sat with these words for a few more days, I’ve come to a deeper understanding. I’ll be real: at first, I wrote this from a place of quasi-victimhood. Now, though, I am reminded of the book “Love” by Leo Buscaglia and what it taught me in my twenties: “People can only love from the depths of which they have been loved.” Meaning, the love they have only themselves received may live in shallow waters. While others have either organically created deep crevices for love or have learned how to.

In other, more brutal words (like my therapists): That is their shit and you do not have to pick it up.

This isn’t to say I don’t have people who don’t pursue these parts of myself – of course, I do. And I hope you do, too. But it’s always those core people (i.e. parents) who seem to fuck it up internally. My writing this to you today is born from a place that encourages you to reverse the story of feeling unwanted, unknown, unworthy of being you. Instead, turn it into the grandest notion that you and I are worth being known. Even if it’s yourself rooting for yourself.

It turns out that it’s worth knowing how deeply you can love and be loved, for the sake of yourself and for others.

Namaste and To Being Known
xo b