Seeing other people with their parents made me realize what I didn’t have
I was sitting in the car today waiting for my mom and just people-watching. There were teenagers and kids talking and laughing with their parents, just normal everyday stuff. But it hit me harder than I expected. I know you can’t judge a whole relationship from a few seconds, but it made me realize I’ve never really had that kind of connection with mine. There weren’t easy or fun conversations. Most of the time they were talking and I was just there listening. That was the dynamic.
It made me so sad I felt like crying. And now that I’m older, I keep thinking I would never treat a child or teenager the way I was treated. It’s hard for me to believe that was their “best.” Thinking about it honestly makes me feel sick. At the same time, they do try more now, but it feels late. Like you can’t really go back and fix something like that once it’s already shaped you. You don’t get a second childhood.
I also feel this weird nostalgia for something I never even had. And I realized I’m not a teenager anymore, that part of life is gone for me, and I didn’t even really get to experience it properly.
I’m just venting, honestly. I just want to know if other people have felt this too. If this is something others go through and how you deal with it.
Because even though those memories weren’t good at all, financially things were unstable, mentally it wasn’t great either, I still felt happy in a way. I think it’s because I didn’t fully understand what was happening back then. Now I’m in a better situation in many ways, but I still feel like I lost something important I can’t really get back.