What I Thought Love Required

CHAPTER ONE

THE VERSION I LEARNED

Long before we ever fall in love with another person, we are learning what love looks like. The truth is, nobody’s first lesson in love is their own.‍ ‍

I was born on a Wednesday at 1:13 in the afternoon in a small town not known for much. The second daughter of a young married couple trying to find their way while still trying to understand themselves.

‍My parents divorced when I was two years old.

I do not remember the divorce itself. I have heard stories over the years, but those are someone else’s memories. Someone else’s version of what happened.

What I remember most from childhood was heaviness. Not loud sadness. More like a tense quiet that always seemed to live in the apartment with us.

At the time, we lived on the poor side of town in a small apartment where my older sister and I shared a room. Nights were never truly quiet there. You could always hear something through the thin walls. Music playing somewhere down the building. Couples arguing in muffled voices. Cars humming past outside. During the summer, kids from the apartment complex gathered in the common lawn area until dark, running, pretending, screaming, and playing hide-and-seek until somebody’s mother finally leaned out a window threatening consequences.

We always had to be inside before dark.

No exceptions.

My sister and I had a special relationship. We loved each other in the way only siblings who regularly wanted to kill each other can.

She was glamorous. Beautiful. Organized. A complete neat freak. Meanwhile, I was basically a tiny tornado with feelings.

I was awkward, chubby, constantly messy, usually covered in pen marks or dirt from outside. My side of the bedroom looked like creativity exploded and the room never recovered.

I could usually be found with my nose buried in a book, drawing something, or stretched out in the grass staring at clouds imagining another life entirely.

I used to wonder constantly what my life would look like once I was grown up and out of that tiny town.

Would I travel?

Would I live somewhere beautiful?

Would I finally feel important?

I did not know yet that little girls often spend their childhood imagining escape long before they understand why.‍

My mother did the best she could with what she had. Looking back now, I see strength in places I was too young to recognize then. I see exhaustion too.

When she was overwhelmed, she would retreat silently to her bedroom. Sometimes I could hear soft crying through the wall. It felt like frustration trying not to become sadness.

At least that is how I understand it now.

Back then, I only knew how to read emotional weather. And our house always felt like a storm trying not to happen.

I learned very early in life that being quiet was rewarded. Holding my tongue was rewarded. Not causing waves was rewarded.

My silence became one of the things I was best at.

Christmas was always complicated growing up. There was always tension hiding underneath the decorations and Christmas music. Even as a child, I could feel it. The adults smiled a little too hard. Everybody seemed one inconvenience away from unraveling.

One Christmas when I was still pretty young, my mom came home carrying bags filled with coloring books, crayons, little toys, wrapping paper, ribbons, and tape.

I lit up instantly.

I loved coloring with my whole heart. Loved creating. Loved disappearing into the feeling of making something beautiful. Seeing all those supplies spread across the table in front of me felt magical.

The wrapping paper had bright dancing snowmen all over it and the apartment smelled like fresh Christmas tree and cheap crayons. My cheeks actually hurt from smiling so hard.

Then my mom spoke.

“Come help me wrap these gifts.”

I remember sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by wrapping paper scraps and tape, treating every package like a tiny masterpiece.

I was always drawn to patterns.

When I washed dishes, they were stacked in specific groups while drying. Forks with forks. Plates by size. Cups lined up perfectly. Something inside me loved order because life itself rarely felt orderly.

The same could be said for the presents.

I stacked every item several different ways before wrapping them trying to determine the most efficient use of paper. Every sheet was cut the exact same size. Every piece of tape was the exact same length.

Too much tape and it became annoying to open. Too little and the paper might accidentally come apart before Christmas.

This mattered to me for reasons I could not explain at the time.

Not one gift was allowed to feel more important than another.

I wanted every package to feel equally special.

After all… if one of them was mine, I wanted the very best for me too.

Every fold was exact.

Every ribbon placed in the same spot.

I smiled while I worked imagining how exciting it would feel in a few hours to tear into one of those beautiful packages.

I wrapped those gifts like my emotional future depended on crisp corners and evenly cut tape.

The crayons were definitely off-brand. The kind that never colored quite right and peeled apart if you pushed too hard. But I loved them anyway.

In my little kid brain, this all made sense.

Good things happened to good kids eventually.

That was the deal, right?

I remember thinking it felt a little strange to wrap my own presents, but I figured adults probably knew things kids didn’t. I convinced myself that putting love into the wrapping would somehow make opening them later even more meaningful.

When the last package was finished, my mom gathered all the presents into a large box and told us to get ready because we were heading to Grandpa’s house.

It was a couple-hour drive to Grandpa’s. Christmas music played softly on the radio while my sister and I sat as far apart in the backseat as humanly possible.

She had her space. I had mine.

I spent most of the drive staring out the window making up stories about the houses we passed. I imagined families inside laughing around fireplaces or opening gifts early when they were not supposed to.

I named the animals we passed too.

Especially the horses.

I loved horses.

I would close my eyes imagining myself riding one through open fields with the wind whipping through my hair while we jumped fallen logs and splashed through rivers like some Disney movie heroine escaping her tiny-town destiny.

The level of dramatic imagination happening in that backseat should have been studied professionally.

Grandpa’s house always felt cold in the winter except for the living room where the fireplace constantly burned. I always sat on the brick near the fire trying to absorb as much warmth as possible.

The cousins were already there when we arrived.

Loud. Wild. Pure chaos.

They were raised in even smaller towns than mine with open fields and land to run across. They always called us “the city kids,” which felt wildly generous considering the “city” in question was barely a blip on the map.

We called them the country kids right back.

Fair is fair.

Living in an apartment, my sister and I were expected to stay quiet constantly so we would not disturb the neighbors.

My cousins moved through the world like noise was not only allowed but encouraged.

It fascinated me.

I was always the quiet one among my cousins.

While the other kids ran through the house yelling and wrestling and breaking sound barriers, I usually stayed close to the edges of the room watching everything more than participating.

Grandpa had these ridiculous floor-to-ceiling strands of brightly colored beads hanging in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. Every child who had ever entered that house had wrapped themselves in those beads, swung from them, or sprinted through them at full speed at least a thousand times.

You could hear them clinking constantly as screaming kids tore through the house like tiny out-of-control maniacs. Some strands were broken from years of abuse, but they still hung there proudly like exhausted survivors.

I loved eating at Grandpa’s house because he was an incredible cook.

Well… except for the gravy.

Finding out he used gizzards in it nearly took me out emotionally as a child. Absolutely not. So gross.

After dinner, it was finally time to open gifts.

My mom handed me the box and asked me to start passing everything out.

I put on the Santa hat and grabbed the first gift. I looked around the room trying to match every package to the correct person. And I remember having one strange little thought.

Would they get it right if the roles were reversed?

I was always known as my sister’s little sister.

Honestly, I am not entirely sure some of my cousins knew my actual name. Not that it mattered much because I was so quiet they probably forgot I was there half the time anyway.

I smiled politely and handed each person their gift without saying much.

With every package I handed out, the box became emptier.

At first I did not panic.

Then I started counting.

Silently. Carefully.

When there were only three gifts left, I realized there were still five kids waiting.

I lowered my head immediately and focused on the last few deliveries. I did not dare let anyone see the disappointment on my face.

Or maybe more accurately…

the shame.

I had to pull myself together quickly.

Then another hopeful thought appeared. Oh wait. We gave them gifts. They probably got us gifts too. And instantly everything felt okay again.

Until nothing came.

So there we sat watching the chaos around us with only our own hands to play with while my cousins tore into the gifts we had wrapped only hours earlier.

I remember one of the boys holding up a coloring book and saying, “A dumb coloring book.”

The adults corrected him immediately.

“Say thank you.”

Then one by one, the adults walked over to my mom thanking her for being so thoughtful and generous.

And somewhere in the middle of all that noise, a dangerous little thought slipped into my head.

Why didn’t I get a gift?

Maybe I had not done enough.

Maybe I had not earned one.

My heart was pounding, and I could feel the heat climbing into my cheeks. The same cheeks that had ached from smiling hours earlier.

How selfish of me. Good girls do not think like that.

Erase that thought immediately.

I remember silently promising myself I would do better next year. I had a full year to improve myself before Christmas came again.

It was dark outside by the time we drove home. Secretly, I was grateful for that because one tear escaped before I could stop it and I did not want anyone to see.

The radio played softly while my mom talked from the front seat. My sister and I sat quietly in the backseat staring out opposite windows pretending we were fine.

I remember watching the lights in the houses as we drove past wondering what was happening inside them.

Were those families happier than us?

Were those kids better behaved than me?

Then my mom said something I would carry for years.

“It’s always better to give than to receive.”

And the truth is…

I believed her.

Giving felt natural.

Receiving felt dangerous.

Looking back now, I think that may have been one of the first times I learned how to turn disappointment into gratitude before anyone noticed I was hurting.

After that Christmas, I became a better kid.

I helped more and tried not to grumble about it. I always did slightly more than I was asked just to make extra sure I covered everything.

I stayed quiet.

The adults called me easy. Helpful. Mature for my age.

I watched everything after that. Tone changes. Facial expressions. Emotional shifts. Which children got praised. Which behaviors softened adults. Which actions earned approval.

I learned quickly that needing very little made people comfortable.

Comfortable children got praised.

The quiet child became the dependable woman.

The little girl who asked for very little became the adult who handled everything.

People praised my strength long before anyone noticed how much of it had been built from emotional deprivation.

Somewhere beneath all of that usefulness, a quieter belief took root. Love was something you earned.

I did not invent my definition of love.

I inherited it.