Wordless Conversations

By Viviane B.

Sometimes there is so much inside you that you want to say, but you can’t find the words to express it. And there’s not always a listening ear to receive all that you have in your heart. It’s a hard fact to accept but some conversations just have no words that can show the truth of your feelings. Here’s my story:

 I wish I could sit down and just be able to open up to someone, anyone, it doesn’t really matter who that person might be at this point. I have been through so much stuff in life, and I have held so much back and not expressed it. And I know it’s not good for me. The one thing that holds me back the most is that I always think to myself “what if they look at me differently after I say all this stuff”? That thought alone has caused me to hold back so many things and not say them. Sad but true. 

I have only opened up to one person, and after I was done, we were both left in tears. See, the problem is that I don’t really trust people because it seems like they always find a way to disappoint me. Every time I put my faith in someone they let me down. And because of this, for a very long time, I felt very alone. I always feel like I should be able to talk to and be really close with my siblings but that hasn’t worked out so well either. I am the youngest child in my family, and not youngest by like a year or two. The sibling closest to my age is almost 10 years older than me and even thought we got along and everything, sometimes I just couldn’t relate to or do things with my siblings because of the age gap, and that made me feel isolated from them as well. When I was younger, I remember  my siblings and cousins would go to the movies or get together to do something fun, and sometimes I couldn’t go because of my age. I always thought this as dumb because come on…why wouldn’t I be able to go to the movies??? In my mind, you’re going to the movies and I’m not a baby.  I wanted to watch the same movies they did! But I wouldn’t be allowed to go. I would stay home and cry because I literally felt like I had no one. Now that I am older,  I can hang out with my siblings more if I wanted to, but it’s different now. I have spent so much time alone that I have gotten used to being by myself. My sister really wants me to open up to her but we didn’t always have that relationship where I would feel comfortable doing that, even though she tried. I have been alone for so long that I feel like I can’t talk to anyone, I feel like no one will understand. 

I spend a lot of time thinking about my childhood and things that have happened to me. A lot of my memories feel like a dream – or maybe a nightmare, because I honestly don’t want to remember them. For a part of my childhood my siblings took care of me because my mom was in Boston while we lived in Providence. I would only get to see her every other weekend because she worked so hard all the time. My mom would come spend two days with us then she would have to leave again, and as soon as she left I counted down the days until she came back. I missed her so much during those days. I actually have this one memory of her that I will never forget:

One day, I missed my mom so much that I stole my sister’s phone and hid behind the bed and called my mom crying because I hadn’t seen her in so long. She still talks about it sometimes like it’s a joke, but I was 6, I just wanted my mom there for me. My dad wasn’t really there either because when we came to America he couldn’t come so he had to stay behind. Leaving him behind was hard because we were very close and we knew how dangerous Cape Verde was. I remember looking at the news one day and seeing my dad! I missed him so much and I got so excited and started pointing at the screen saying “look that’s Papa”! I was mad happy at first, but then my siblings had to explain to me that the reason he was on the news was because he was robbed and stabbed. My happiness instantly turned into sadness and fear. It was very hard for me to know that I could have lost him. 

It was really hard for me growing up because I felt like I had no one to talk to and that feeling never really changed so I learned to depend on myself. I have this really bad habit of thinking that I can’t tell anyone anything because even my family wasn’t there for me when I needed them, so how could I depend on a stranger? What I’m realizing now is that things change as we grow up. I am not the same person I was before and I know that I have been through a lot more than I talk about, but as you grow up you start to see that you can not always only depend on yourself. Even though me and my siblings are not as close as we could be, we do talk and we try to stay connected with each other. This makes me feel good and shows me that they try to put in effort and every now and then I don’t feel so lonely. I know I have a long way to go, but I’m proud of the progress I have made! So if you have ever felt any of the things I wrote about in this blog, don’t worry your feelings of loneliness so much right now. It does get better.