Glass Between Us

I didn’t start inside the glass.
I started in a family.

A mother’s voice in the kitchen.
Sisters’ laughter down the hallway.
Memories that felt so solid, like they’d hold me forever.

I never imagined there could be a version of me they couldn’t reach.

But when everything inside me began to break—a glass between us appeared.

From the outside—they didn’t see it at first.
They looked straight through it.
Saw me the way they always had—strong, familiar, still theirs.

Then something shifted.
They said I became quieter.
Further away.

They didn’t know how to reach me.
So, they stayed where things still made sense.

They didn’t build the glass.
It rose in the moments I needed them most.

When I was hurting.
When I was unraveling.
When I didn’t have the words for what was happening inside me—

I went to them.

And somehow that’s when I felt them slip away.

They remember it differently.
They remember not knowing what to say.
Not knowing how to fix it.
Not knowing how to carry something they couldn’t see.

Slowly they stepped back.

Thinking space might help.
Thinking time might settle things.

But it didn’t feel like space.

It felt like abandonment.
It felt like standing in a storm calling out for the people who raised me—and watching them close the door because they didn’t understand the weather.

Every unanswered call.
Every change of subject.
Every “you’ll be okay” said too quickly—another layer of glass sealed into place.

They told themselves I needed time.
That pushing too hard might make it worse.
They didn’t realize silence can sound like leaving.
That distance can feel like rejection.

I needed my mother.
I needed my sisters.
I needed my family.

I needed a my support system.

Not to fix me.
Not to have the answers.
Just to stay.
But I didn’t know how to say this.
So, I learned how to sit in the pain alone.

Because reaching started to feel heavier than the silence that followed.

They were still there.
Still loving me in the only ways they knew how.

But love felt different from my side of the glass.

Where they thought they were giving space—I felt left behind.

They saw the changes.

Mood swings.
Distance.
Withdrawal.
Choices they didn’t understand.

But they didn’t see what caused it.

The fear.
The exhaustion.
The quiet collapse happening underneath it all.

I became unfamiliar to them.
And instead of coming closer—they stepped back.

That’s where the glass stopped being thin.
That’s when it became a wall.

I tried to reach through it at first.
Tried to explain.
Tried to cry.
Tried to be seen.

But my words came out wrong.

Too emotional.
Too messy.
Too much.

Until I stopped trying.

Because it hurt more to be unseen than to be alone.

They heard me—but not fully.

Sometimes my pain overwhelmed them.
Sometimes they thought it was something they could fix.
Or manage.
Or quiet.

And when they couldn’t—they didn’t know how to stay.

So, they grew quieter and I stayed inside the glass because at least there—I didn’t have to hope they’d reach back.

And hope became the heaviest thing to carry.

They stayed outside the glass because they didn’t know how to break it without making things worse.

They didn’t realize—doing nothing was its own kind of breaking.

Then one day I stopped waiting for them to understand me perfectly.

And I reached anyway.
I placed my hand against the glass.

Not because it didn’t hurt but because part of me
still needed them.

And when they saw my hand—
not accusing
not pushing
just there—
they saw something they hadn’t let themselves see before.

I wasn’t distant.
I wasn’t defiant.

I was hurting.

And in the moment, I needed them most—they had stepped away.

Not to be cruel.
Not because they didn’t love me.
Because they didn’t understand the pain I was in.

I realized—the glass wasn’t built by just one side.

It lived in the space between us.
In the fear.
In the silence.
In everything neither of us knew how to hold.

It’s a mother learning how to sit in what she can’t fix.

A sister learning how to stay instead of stepping back.

A daughter learning that reaching again is still worth it.

It’s messy.
It’s slow.
It doesn’t erase what happened.

But it creates something new.
A way through the silence.
A way through the hurt.
A way back to each other—

One small crack at a time.