Learning to Hold My Heart Soft, Even When It Hurts
Today I remembered that you can’t "Gold Star" your way into love
DISCLAIMER: If my truth is going to make you feel uncomfortable, stop reading this now. It has only taken me 32 years to figure out that having big emotions does not mean that I am hard to deal with.
From the outside looking in, one might perceive me as someone who has everything figured out. God has blessed me with a life that I genuinely love, a career that I look forward to pursuing every day, and loving friends and family who show up for me when I need them. The truth of the matter is, on days like today, I am a ball of emotions. A child who misses her father, who is still very much alive, but no longer feels the need to have a relationship with his children. It is not to be mistaken, my dad was never a deadbeat. He was present for every milestone, big or small, and I grew up with him in our home until I left for college. My dad, still, however, is the tell-tale sign of what it means to have a parent who is not emotionally present.
I didn’t realize it much when I was a kid. Maybe it’s because between the physical and emotional abuse he displayed toward my mother, she managed to overcompensate for what she might’ve known he was incapable of. I grew up with a mom who showered me with love notes, kisses, and random “I love yous.” I do believe that her big heart is something I inherited as the firstborn. I’m not saying that she doesn’t have her flaws, or didn’t have moments where she withdrew her emotions from me when she was in a fight with my dad. Still, I can say that, even though she hasn’t always understood why I am the way I am, she hasn’t at least tried to show up for me as best as she can – especially in these adult years, as someone who is currently in my third or fourth year of therapy trying to unlearn and heal from some of the traumas I’ve endured all of my life.
Why am I sharing this with you on Substack? I have no idea. What I do know though is that as I sit on this flight with the tears streaming at the flow of rivers down my cheeks, I felt convicted to take my thoughts from my journal (aka my saving grace), and share it with whomever may be reading this who may be able to relate in one way or the other. It takes courage to share these personal struggles, and I hope it inspires you to connect with your journey.
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From an early age, I realized how my emotions made others around me uncomfortable, which confused me a lot as a child who was just trying to be honest about how I felt, and often about the turmoil that went on within the walls of the homes we lived in throughout my childhood. I can vividly recall the many times I was lectured about “what goes on in this house stays in the house,” you know, the sentiment that has torn Black families apart for generations? I tried so hard to vocalize the pain and confusion that I felt in my heart quite often as a kid, and eventually, I learned to suppress those emotions out of fear of disappointing or hurting the people I loved who also claimed to love me.
This led to anxiety attacks that many would blame on my asthma, and I had no idea what that emotion was when I was young (boy, do I wish I had a movie like Inside Out 2 to help me understand back then). Moreover, it also led to the one thing people have always complimented me about.
“Shanique, you’re so intelligent for your age.” As a means of survival, I threw myself into books, devouring them one at a time, sometimes hardly coming up for air because the characters, worlds, and plots within some of my favorite stories became a form of escape. Something to silence the chaos that always seemed to be around me, within families who may have meant well and were trying to protect me, but often pretended like everything was sunshine and rainbows.
It’s all a blessing and a curse, because on one hand, I have always been able to be a glass-half-full kinda girlie, but on the other, it turned me into a people pleaser. Constantly performing to make others around me happy, usually at the expense of my sanity.
I can’t even begin to tell you the plethora of relationships I stayed in because I thought it was the right thing to do, both platonically and romantically, and how I endured abuse of my own from a very close family member that I still have only verbalized to a hand full of people out of fear that it’ll tear my family apart. I will share that it wasn’t my father who abused me. I can count on one hand the number of times I received a whipping from him, and the ones I did receive were more than likely warranted. I wasn’t a perfect child, but boy, did I strive to be. But I'm on a journey of healing, and I hope it brings you hope and optimism for your journey.
“If I just make straight A’s maybe my parents will get along,” is one of the many things I told myself, as I overachieved my way through grade school, consistently making Honor Roll, being inducted into the National Honor Society, among countless other accolades that, don’t be confused, I was very proud of achieving.
I just wish someone would’ve told me back then that I couldn’t gold star my way into getting the adults in my life to behave. And I’m not writing this to bash anyone or to point fingers, because I understand that coming from where I come from, my parents just didn’t have the tools themselves to know what it means to break generational curses. However, they managed to do so with my siblings and me.
What continues to help me maintain a soft heart toward them, specifically my dad, is that they grew up in a time when they weren’t allowed to express their feelings. I don’t know much, if anything, about what they may have experienced in their respective households that made them feel that way, but my heart aches for the wounded inner child that lives within them, still longing to be loved. I hope this acknowledgment of the complexity of family dynamics makes you feel understood and validated in your own experiences.
I also have never held any grudges or ill will toward my dad, whom I barely have a relationship with these days. My calls and texts often go unanswered, and many times it’s hard not to feel like he’s moved on to a life without me. Who knows? Maybe, he’ll read this and want to reconcile, and I’ll always welcome him with open arms.
However, I’d be lying if I said my heart doesn’t ache and shatter into a million pieces sometimes when I hear people constantly congratulating me for my personal and professional achievements, wondering where I’m traveling to next, or what big star I’ll be interviewing when the person whose DNA ruins through my veins won’t pick up the phone as I call, not because I want anything or need money, but simply to say “Hey dad, you’ll never believe how my interview with Eddie Murphy went today.”
Again, I don’t know why I’m sharing this with you, and if you’ve made it this far into this post, I don’t want sympathy or a pity party; I just want to lean into vulnerability. This superpower has saved me time and time again, as well as a relationship with God that was birthed out of pain at an early age. Thank you for reading.
Reminder: This is a safe space for me to share my truth; therefore, it is not intended to hurt or put anyone down in the process. Again, if you’ve made it this far, I’ve suppressed and internalized my truth for so long. As I continue to heal, I will continue to share - the good, the bad, and the ugly, and it’s all for Baby Shanique. If it makes you uncomfortable, please know that my feelings will not be hurt if you unsubscribe. I hope this helps.
