I’m Learning to Stay

I recently noticed something I hadn’t been able to see before.

For a long time, I didn’t understand why my relationship with my child felt so intense. Why it could feel so close and beautiful and then suddenly overwhelming, like I needed to step back and create space.

I used to think that was normal. It was just about needing time for myself.

But now I see there is something deeper underneath.

I see how often I move away from closeness. Not because I don’t love, but because somewhere inside me, closeness still feels like too much to hold for too long. It feels unsafe.

And that’s uncomfortable to admit.

Because on the surface, it looks like independence. Like strength. Like knowing how to take care of myself. But when I look more honestly, I can see that sometimes it’s just distance, something I learned a long time ago.

My child doesn’t follow that pattern.

She wants presence. Real connection. A kind of closeness that doesn’t wait for the “right moment.” And I’m starting to notice how often that meets the part of me that wants to pull away, not from her, but from the intensity of being that close.

And the hardest part is this:

I don’t always know how to stay.

Not because I don’t want to but because I’m still learning what it means to be close without losing myself.

I’m not writing this from a place of having healed it.

I’m writing this from a place of noticing.

Of catching those small moments where I create distance. Where I tell myself I just need space, but something deeper might be happening.

And for the first time, I don’t want to judge it or fix it immediately.

I just want to feel it.

And maybe that’s where something new can begin.
A.