When his family called, there was the version he gave them. The version that included the work going well, the apartment being fine, the life being roughly on track.
There was the other version. The debt he hadn’t told them about. The job he had quietly left. The loneliness that had been a fixture for two years. The question about his relationship with faith that he had been sitting with alone.
They were not a family that talked about things. He had learned that early. Love was present and questions were avoided. He had become fluent in both.
For many people, the family that raised them is also the family they can least be honest with. Not from a lack of love but from the codes that were established long before they had the language to renegotiate them. We love the people and maintain the performance. We give them the version they can hold and keep the rest of it for somewhere else.
I have things I haven’t told my family. Not from shame. From the knowledge that the conversation would cost more than the secret does, and the love would remain regardless.
He gives his family the working version. They give him theirs. They love each other across the gap between the real and the presented.
Is that enough? Is it almost enough? Or is there a version of this where someone crosses the gap first?
The gap doesn’t have to stay this wide. It can close. It usually closes slowly, one conversation at a time, when someone is brave enough to say something real and finds, to their surprise, that the sky doesn’t fall.
He knows this. He also knows his family. He hasn’t crossed the gap yet.
He keeps the call warm. He keeps it short. He says the version that fits.
Some things worth sitting with:
- Is there a version of yourself that your family knows and a version they don’t?
- What would it take to show them something real?
- What are you protecting by keeping the two versions separate?
It connects, in its own way, to She Had Plans Every Weekend. She Still Came Home Feeling Empty..
Inspired by a real story shared anonymously online.