A kind of alone
There’s a kind of alone that no one talks about. The kind that doesn’t shout, doesn’t wail, doesn’t even knock. It simply is…quietly, stubbornly, unmovingly. Like a chipped teacup that still holds liquid. Like a childhood photo with no story behind it.
It’s the kind of alone that tiptoes in when someone says “Of course my mom called” or “I had to ask my dad first”.
The kind of alone that presses down softly, not heavily, but with just enough weight to remind you it’s there. Like an ache in a phantom limb, or a melody you can’t place but somehow know by heart.
I miss having parents. Not mine – because, truthfully, I never really had them. Not in the way that counts. Not in the way where someone folds your name into every prayer, where arms open before you even know you need them. Not in the way where love is reflex, not performance.
I miss having the idea of parents. The way they’re supposed to exist. Like bookends on either side of your story, holding it upright, protecting the pages from curling at the corners. I miss the safety net that everyone talks about – the one that says, “No matter what, we’re here”. Mine always came with holes, with strings too thin, with knots tied too late.
It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t felt it. The absence that isn’t just loss but a never-had. It’s not grief, not exactly. Grief implies something was once yours. But this is different. It’s like watching strangers cradle their children and knowing that kind of softness was never meant for you. It’s a perpetual almost. A longing without a face.
Sometimes I see parents on the street and wonder what it would feel like to be picked up from the station just because someone missed you. To be asked what you want for your birthday by someone who remembers your favorite color. To be told, simply and plainly “You are loved, you are safe, I’ve got you”. God, what must that feel like?
I try to patch the hole with other things –friendships that feel like home, the warmth of chosen family, a lover’s gentle hands. And it helps. Sometimes. It does. But nothing is quite the same. Because the hole isn’t just absence. It’s origin. It’s the place where I was supposed to begin.
And some nights, I lie in bed and I ache. Not loudly. Just enough. Just a little. It’s always a little. Like a string pulled too tightly in my chest, humming quietly, I miss what I never had. I miss it every day.
And maybe that’s just how it is. A quiet ache. A kind of alone. A hole that lives with me, not because I invited it in, but because I was born with it.
Still, I carry it. Gracefully, sometimes. Other times not. But always with the hope that one day, I will be for myself what I never received: a steady hand, a warm voice, an unshakeable love.
Maybe I can’t fill the hole.
But maybe I can build around it.
— Lux
