just a footnote

The following is a post about my past and the pain I still carry.

I’m sitting on the couch, crying. And I’m angry at myself for it. This shouldn’t make me cry. Most of the time, it doesn’t. I thought I was over it. I worked through it all. But today, it caught me off guard.

My sister sent me a photo this morning. Our aunt and her whole family: her husband, her three kids, their partners, their children. All of them smiling, huddled together like a greeting card. And it is a beautiful photo. Very much so. And I truly believe it wasn’t sent to spite me or to hurt me. My sister merely forwarded it because she thought I would be interested.

It wasn’t a photo I was ever meant to be in. It wasn’t about me. But it reminded me that I’m not even on the list. Not even a thought.

My aunt sends my sister these photos. Travels four hundred kilometres to visit her. But she can’t spare twenty-five to meet me for a coffee. One could say it goes both ways, but my invites or texts receive one-worded replies at most.

The other day, my aunt was visiting my mother, her sister. She called my sister from there and asked if she wanted to talk to our mum. My sister didn’t have the time. She didn’t call me. Not even to say hello. I would have liked to be thought of. By both, my mum and my aunt. I wasn’t.

I shouldn’t care. But I do. Because in the end, this is not about one photo. It’s about a lifetime of being left out.

When I was younger, my aunt told my cousin I was a bad influence. Why? Because I talked back? Because I dared to exist with too many feelings and not enough polish?

I stayed home. I got through school. I had a plan, and I followed it. I married my first serious boyfriend and we’ve been together for twenty-five years now. I didn’t run away like my sister did at nineteen. I stayed. I helped. I sacrificed my own mental health. As dramatic as it sounds, it’s true.

But I was the bad influence.

I wasn’t allowed to go on a school trip to London because I had to stay home and care for my mother. I wasn’t allowed to go out to parties or invite friends over. I was told I wasn’t worth the air I breathe. When I self-harmed, I was told I was too stupid to even do that properly. This reads like i am detached from it all, and maybe I am. Just not often enough.

Where was my mother in all of this? Gone. Her illness stole her. Where was my father? Absent, as always. He couldn’t merge the family he left with the family he chose. I know it guilts him still. I love him, but he is a stranger who was never there. Where was my grandmother? Busy giving my sister the love she never had for me.

I wasn’t even taught the basics. Not how to brush my teeth or how often to shower or even how to wipe. I had to learn it all by watching other kids and pretending I knew what I was doing. Fake it till you make it.

I wasn’t told bedtime stories. I was told to shut up. Told to behave. Told to be grateful for things I never even had.

And still, today at forty-two, I cry over a photo I was never meant to be part of. Because the sting isn’t about being in the frame. It’s about never even being remembered when the shutter clicks.

I’m not family. I’m the footnote. The complication. The one who speaks too much, feels too much, remembers too much. The one who doesn’t do things the conventional way but gets everything done anyway. Without any family support.

And yes, I’m crying now. Because today it was too heavy to hold in. It will pass. I know that. But right now, it hurts like hell.

And while I am writing this, the echo of demanding attention or space is like a blinking light in my brain. Tomorrow will be easier again, but today was tough. Because out of the blue, a wave of past pain swallowed me.