23/01/2025 - The warmth of a motherly love.

Hello readers,

I just had an argument with my sister. We were having dinner at a sushi place, and earlier on this afternoon, I told her, and my dad, that I felt heavy in my stomach even though I ate less than normal recently. Therefore wondering if it was emotional. Just not being able to pinpoint what it was. So after we ate, I started to talk openly. Without any aim, except to open up about what it could be.

Because this heaviness is often associated with sadness in myself. Wherever, however, and with whomever I end up being, it always finds me again. And I long, and long. Long for something that will fill me up. Something that will make it go away. I started to talk about the feeling in itself. Uncertain about the terms to use, what even it was in the first place.

And it's not new, I already talked about it many times with them. These past few days have been beautiful but tinted by the past. We spent hours talking about who we were, as children, and teenagers. How our relationships evolved. How we evolved all together. And I found myself diving into who I once was, and the many versions of Louna Gregoire.

From being a child who had a hard time feeling because life made no sense, to understanding it more and more but never enough, to feeling it all but having no tools to express the depth and the intensity of it, to blocking it all and refusing to feel, to rebelling against everyone who dared trying to help me feel anything, to longing of being understood.

And I'll stop on this one, because it is the reason of our argument. I longed for so long to be understood. For what I believed would be a partner, a lover, someone who could finally understand me. Who could take away and pinpoint what was wrong with me, I guess. And they were trying to make sense of it with me pragmatically.

I don't need to be saved, I don't feel victimized. I don't need to find someone who is like me, I'd rather meet difference, because I believe in complementarity more than similarity. I don't need someone to intellectually dissect myself, one is more than enough. It's no one else's job. So finally, by eliminating what I knew wasn't the root of my heartache. I sense that I was reaching it more and more.

It was never to be intellectually understood, it was emotional all along. I saw myself at New Year's, coming back home with my friend, sitting on the couch. Shitfaced to be honest. Talking about it, the same exact thing that ends up coming back to the surface constantly. And me stating that I just wished to leave this place, go back home, and feel safe.

This desire to run away from life, the need to retrieve in solitude, my craving for newness, is at the root of it; the inability to truly emotionally feel safe. Because home was in the arms of my mum. I'm longing for an emotional unconditional love. I'm longing to be in the arms of someone who doesn't judge me for feeling it all. For the contradiction, the silliness, the mess that I am.

I desire to express freely, everything that I feel even if they make absolute no sense, be met by a gentle stroke along my temple, and be soothed to sleep. I desire kindness, tenderness, and forgiveness. I just want to be held, and loved. That's it. I know I am complex, I can be cold, even judgmental, and detached. But god, I've missed it more than anything else.

When I started expressing it, my sister judged me, briefly. Finally I was being able to reach a deep emotion, and she cut me off. I saw her judgment. I didn't make sense in her eyes. So it wasn't worth being discussed, even less felt. But I didn't choose to feel it! That's what I wanted to shout at her. But instead, like I always did in my childhood. I shut myself off, stood up, took the bike and rode home. Opened my laptop, and started writing.

Because in front of a page with my pen, or a screen with my keyboard, I feel safe enough to lay it all out. It's where I can finally drop the weight and be myself fully. I cried on the way back, I saw myself, countless times, having to push my feelings back in because I was met by resistance and misunderstanding from my family.

And I love them, so much. But it is what I felt, it is my truth. My dad became emotionally intelligent through the years but he was short-tempered, logical, and egotist when I was a child. Didn't want or care to understand my emotions. My mum, if I'm honest, I don't really remember our relationship, I think that my brain hid a lot of it when she passed in order to preserve my own sanity. The rest of my family all came from rough childhoods where emotions were the least of all priorities.

And my sister, as understanding as she is, is my little sister. I've played the role of the mother for her, I've been harsh sometimes, but I also listened when she needed it. I've took care, protected, and learned to compromise my own desires for hers. I taught myself how to be a mum because she needed me to be, or at least that's what I believed. If one of us could have it that was better than none.

And tonight being projected into how I used to feel, it allowed me to express all of it. For the first time, I actually see clearly where it comes from. My fear of appearing stupid if my emotional state doesn’t align with what I think/know is logical. Because a lot of time what I think and what I feel are different, even so opposite.

I realize now how much strength it takes to hold space for someone’s emotions, especially when they don’t make sense or align with what we believe is best for them. What feels like care can sometimes be neglect. And when I say we, I should say I because it is my story. A story where, surely no one in my lineage, has been able to be free to feel. Even less loved for it.

So, it is my duty to create a new path for myself, to allow vulnerability, to care of my own wellness beyond societal norms. Because when I look at humanity as a whole, we’re going through an internal war. We no longer kill each other, but kill parts of ourselves. We prize reason over emotion, even though both are essential.

I don't need a partner to create this for me, I can do it myself. And I certainly won't accept anyone who will ever make me feel judged for needing it. By not being able to express my feelings, I developed a great emotional intelligence, which happens to be one of my quality now. Too many times I've let people made me think I was foolish for feeling what they couldn't themselves. I didn't received those capacities, I inherited them through pain. And I believe what I feel, sometimes way more than logic. I'm ready to be safe emotionally.

My story is certainly unique, but my experiences aren't. I lost my mum, but countless of people have never felt the warmth of a motherly love either. And what it represents. I feel for you tonight, and send you my own love. There's enough for the both of us if you need it too.

With love, Loune.