I have so many moments where I feel so incredibly sad. By no means has my family been close. We were pretty dysfunctional. But it has been 8 years since I saw them in person (we call every now and then). They are far away from where I live, and they don’t share deeply personal things to “protect us”. I dread nothing more than a hypothetical day my parent/s tell me how one of them is sick or something else bad that happens to them. I cannot do anything about this feeling because I bought a ticket to see them at the end of this year but I absolutely cannot afford to go to them, nor can they afford to come to me. At this rate there’s only logically a limited number of times I can see them. The thought is horrid. I’m so incredibly sad and I don’t know how to deal with this.
I’m also afraid to open up to my parents. What I mean is, one day I was thinking about getting a beer with my father and then panicked thinking he would miss me so much that he would start drinking a lot only because it is a memory of time spent with me. I don’t want to tell them I miss them because it would hurt them and make them sad. So I always say I’m ok, everything is good etc. I don’t want them to feel sad or cry or miss me because it accomplishes literally nothing and doesn’t pay the flight tickets.
I do not miss them because of comfort or financial assistance or anything like that. I just feel so sad that they are old and can’t hang out with me in person. I feel like they miss me and it makes me super sad.
Please help. Any coping mechanism helps. I love and miss them and it breaks my heart everyday. Thank you for reading.
Tldr: I miss my parents even though we were never too close, and I don’t know how to cope with them getting old.
2 comments
Can you relocate closer? Within driving distance?
It’s not the same as in person but I encourage you to make time to speak to them over zoom or something, and make it regular however often you would like, and to be open and honest with them even about painful feelings. And hopefully seeing you being vulnerable will encourage them to be more personal in return. the sharing of painful feelings is generative and brings people closer, and will feel more fulfilling than both parties pretending to be fine to protect the other side from feeling pain or hurt. Pain and hurt are part of life, and sharing those feelings and having someone you care about bear witness to, honour, and be alongside you in expressing those things, is really something beautiful. You don’t want to ever feel that there were important things left unsaid in the service of protecting someone from pain. It’s painful because there is love, and I think that’s a great thing in the end.