“I didn’t need my family to need me differently. I just needed to see myself clearly enough to stop chasing something that wasn’t actually gone.”

Somewhere between an airport, a rental car that wouldn’t shift right, and a long-awaited reunion with my son, I had a meltdown on a sidewalk in Dublin. When my daughter reached for my arm to comfort me, I pulled away from her the way a toddler pulls from someone trying to help. I felt shame writing that sentence. I still do.

That night, before we could finally sleep, I tried a new version of my own method. No prompt, just me scrolling through the day’s photos looking for one that connected to what had happened. No one had photographed the outburst itself, so I looked for something that connected to it another way. What I found instead was a pattern I hadn’t noticed while it was happening: in photo after photo, my family had their backs to me.

The Harvest

I wrote into that pattern without trying to shape it into anything yet:

“What strikes me is this is what made me sad. A feeling of being excluded in a way, but that isn’t right, either. I think I’m just trying to capture them in the moment, mostly. Get a little glimpse of them in the world with me on the sidelines. Not really away or even excluded, but still a little on the outside.”

When I read it back, three words stood out most:

Backs. Excluded. Balance.

I let them sit overnight before I wrote about them. I was over tired, anyway, and I’ve learned the insight rarely comes to me right away. The next day, when I finally unpacked them, this is what surfaced:

“These words from my journal make me see I was worried about any of us feeling excluded or outside of the family unit… I think I felt that myself because the kids are older and different than when they were children. It’s their lack of needing me I feel, and that makes me feel excluded… I see, though, it was more of a transition. Who am I to them when I’m away and unable to cook or offer the usual support? Instead of trying to chase them so much to show myself they still need or want me, I need to be steady and patient. They will, and have, come to me when they need me.”

What This Revealed

I didn’t need my family to need me the way they used to. I needed to see myself clearly enough to stop chasing something that had only changed shape, not disappeared. Naming that, in the middle of the trip, was enough to let me set it down and stay present for the rest of the vacation. What I didn’t write in the longer blog post was what that looked like throughout the rest of the trip. In small moments, each  member of my family sought me out individually and quietly either asked for my advice, care, or time to sit with them and be in a situation. Each time, I thought back to the journal.

I’m not trying to make this more than it is.  I know this sounds maybe a bit too perfect. Maybe a bit controlled or like the truth has been stretched. I don’t want you to read my story and discount it because it sounds like a story. Truly, the power of the practice is not in what insights we gain, but in the naming and control we have over our thoughts and feelings after. Because I named at least one aspect of what was bothering me or processing, I was more in tune with it throughout our trip and that awareness allowed me to be more intentional and aware of each situation.

Photo Journal Prompt

Find a photo from recently where you’re on the edge of something, not the center of it. Maybe you’re watching rather than doing, in the background rather than the foreground, included but not quite in the middle of it. Write freely about that photo and what it brought up. Then pull three or four words from what you wrote. Sit with them for a day if you can, and then write a short few sentences unpacking what the words mean to you together or separately. Is there a pattern, or do they each hold different meanings on their own?

The full story is here, if you want to go deeper.