I’d held a particular kind of anxiety in the company of other moms for a long time. Casual meetups and informal gatherings that are thought of as fun and connective for most, are the same events that caused my whole body to tighten muscle by muscle. Uneasiness moving into my body with a force that had no intention of leaving as I sat in anticipation of being invited into a conversation. A chance to share stories, experiences and connect – the ordinary currency of motherhood I’d somehow found myself completely unable to spend.

It wasn’t the conversation itself. It was the threat of it. That was enough.

I found myself in one of these constrictive, anxiety inducing gatherings one afternoon sitting in a quiet campground at a picnic table near the ocean. I sat amongst two moms of young children, each settled into the easy comfort of an afternoon together. The conversation moved the way it does in those settings – naturally and lightly from one mom to the next.

Instantly the contrast of our lives was as stark as night sitting beside day.

They were living inside the ordinary rhythm of young motherhood – the milestones and funny moments, the shared exhaustion. I was living something else entirely.

At that time my ordinary was a state of unrelenting agony, sadness and fear. My teenage son had been in a consistent pattern of running away and being placed in juvenile detention when he was found. Multiple times I’d gone days or weeks either not knowing where he was, and when I did know I understood he was in a known drug house. I was spending my days emailing and calling the juvenile probation system begging them to put effort into finding him and feeling abandoned and hopeless when they wouldn’t.

As I sat there with them my body begin to respond. My shoulders began folding in towards each other – my bones and muscles doing their best to shrink me down. Wishing I would suddenly be needed or required to be anywhere except at that table. None of this happened because I was embarrassed – it was never that. My son has never been a source of embarrassment or shame for me. It was the divide itself that silenced me.

I knew the silent guidelines of moments like this. You stay general and you ask the safe questions. The ones that don’t typically get drastic, unordinary or somewhat shocking answers.

That was where the the divide lay.

Knowing that for me, an honest answer to a typical question such as, “does your son play any sports?” – and my true response requiring me to say,

“no he’s actually locked away in kid jail right now, so no, he’s not playing sports.”

clearly violated the unspoken rules of small talk.

I understood raw, unexpected answers to ordinary questions can cause instant discomfort for the one who asked. My anxiety came from a place of never wanting anyone to feel any weight of unknowingly bringing up a sensitive topic I may not want to think about or to put them in the uncomfortable position of being thrown off and having no footing on how to respond to my answer. I understood my life held a physical weight that could be felt by anyone who heard me speak about it honestly. It never felt it belonged in places where surface level or common conversations resided. So I stayed quiet or avoided getting in that situation in the first place.

I’m now many years into living this experience and have started to realize I prioritized everyone’s comfort – including my own, a little too much. I held my experiences hostage, terrified that my life would leak onto them if anything honest came out of my mouth and then we’d both be in physical discomfort. I could not bear seeing or absorbing their discomfort and feeling like I had been the one to cause it, so I stayed quiet and I decided to protect others and myself from my life.

What I didn’t see then was that my protection also kept me alone in my experiences. I removed almost any opportunity to be cared for or comforted by those who would have been able and capable of helping to hold the weight and sorrow of my life. The silence that felt like consideration for others was also quietly a sentence of solitary I handed to myself.

This life has rested in me for a long time now. It’s a part of me, in many ways it is me. I’ve grown in it and with it. I no longer feel such a desire to guard it. To fiercely lock it away and attempt to show up in the world skipping and carefree. Some of the initial pain has healed. Overall, I’m better today and am many miles from where I was dumped off on the start of this dusty, pot holed road I’ve walked in parenting. Many of my experiences are now just things. They’re just moments or seasons I’ve lived that have become a part of me. I never would have wanted any of these experiences, but I’m now proud to walk with them as a part of me. I’m becoming more willing to share my past and open up about the ones I’m still dealing with.

Creating this space, writing and sharing these stories is the next step in not working so hard to protect myself or my story. More importantly this is about the hope of being someone others can find if they find themselves living a heavy life that makes them feel alone, scared to share or doesn’t feel to fit in the borders of what they see around them.

I never really found that. I’m hoping that if you landed here, you feel somewhat like you did.