childhood and parents

It was disconcerting, how growing up he had felt both smothered and overlooked in the same household.

Wanting to be understood, as adults, can be, among many other things, our most violent form of nostalgia.

Now the more telling question: Aren’t these the very qualities that are often ignored or rejected in our families? To the extent this is so, we are valued not for being a child, but for growing out of it.

she asked if I thought I’d gone for unavailable people because I knew I’d never have to face the reality that being with them would not solve all my problems. I told her she had no business saying something that perceptive.

It doesn’t matter how much money I make or how well I do, he’ll always just see me as his too-loud kid that got in trouble with teachers for talking too much and could never quite figure out how to hand in his homework on time.

There comes a time when the heaping up of calamities brings on uncontrollable nervous laughter—when, after a final blow from fate, we decide to treat it all as a joke.

Most of us did not have parent-figures who were able to identify, let alone regulate, their feelings.