There’s someone I’ve been drawn to lately.
Not in a dramatic, consuming way — more like a quiet pull. A curiosity.
She’s in a relationship. She’s busy. A parent. And in many ways, not really available — emotionally or otherwise.

Still, I found myself wanting to talk to her.
More than that — I found myself wanting her to want to talk to me.

And I think I understand why.

It wasn’t romance. Not really.
It was my inner child — the part of me that once had to work for attention, that learned to earn affection in scraps, that still aches to be seen by people who can’t fully see.

She reminded me of someone. Not exactly my mum, but not far off either.
Always busy. Often distracted. Focused on her child, but in a way that made emotion feel like an inconvenience.
She told me she doesn’t let her son cry in the car. That she tells him to hold it in.
And I didn’t judge her — I know how hard parenting is — but something in me flinched.

It sounded familiar.
Too familiar.

And then there was this moment.
I was talking to her in a group. Open, present, trying to connect.
And she wasn’t listening.
I think I knew it somewhere deep down, but I didn’t want to believe it.

That’s when someone else — someone who’s always been a bit mothering toward me — quietly said:

“She’s not listening to you.”

And suddenly I saw it.
The quiet reach I was making.
The way I was offering myself to someone who couldn’t receive me.

Not because I’m not worth listening to.
But because she doesn’t have that space in her.

And that’s the part that cracked open something deep:

I wasn’t drawn to her.
I was drawn to the hope that maybe someone like her could finally give me the attention I never got.

But she can’t. And that’s not a flaw in me.
It’s just a pattern. And this time, I saw it.

I don’t need to chase crumbs anymore.
I don’t need to prove I’m worthy to people who aren’t capable of seeing me — not because I’m unworthy, but because they’re not present.

And I’m thankful to the part of me that reached anyway.
Because it led me back to myself.
Back to that quiet truth:

I’m already enough.
I don’t need to be listened to by the emotionally unavailable to believe I matter.

I just need to listen to the part of me that’s still waiting for love to feel safe.

And slowly, I’m doing that.