Some Questions Come Too Late —And Still Cut Too Deep

When I was younger, I thought love was something you had to earn.

I didn’t grow up in a home filled with affirmations. We didn’t say “I love you.” We said “Did you eat yet?” and “Get an A.” I spent 18 years listening closely to everything my mother said—trying to meet her expectations, trying not to disappoint. I shaped my life around her rules. Then I began to feel the cracks: frustration, exhaustion, resentment.

I didn’t feel loved. I felt obligated.

I didn’t feel supported. I felt judged.

And for a long time, I thought that was normal.

In our household, everything was about respect, responsibility, and sacrifice. My parents would probably say it was built on love too. Maybe it was. But as a daughter who only ever felt love as something conditional, something you had to be good enough for—I couldn’t grasp it. Not then.

So I worked. I earned. I endured. I survived.

Even the darkest moments—I calculated how to leave this world quietly. I got my finances in order so no one would bear the burden. I cut ties so no one would feel the weight. I believed that even death had to be earned.

But I didn’t leave. I stayed. Scarred, yes. Wounded, absolutely. But here. And over time, I started to build a life that I chose. Not the one they mapped out for me. Not the one I thought would finally win me approval. A life I could call my own.

You’d think that healing would mean closure.

But family doesn’t work that way.

The past comes back like muscle memory—just like riding a bike. That same emotional terrain. That same ache in my chest.

The other day, my mother asked me a question I’ve never heard from her in my entire life:

“Is there anything you need that I can get for you?”

She probably meant something simple—something tangible. That's how she usually shows care: food.

She didn’t say do you want to eat something, but do you want anything from me? Because of that it hit me differently.

Because when I did need something—when I was a child under her roof, silently breaking—she never asked. Not once.

And now that I’ve figured out how to stand on my own, now that I’ve built scaffolding from years of self-work, now she asks? I didn’t know how to respond. So I said:

“You can’t give me anything I need.”

I know how harsh that sounds. But it was the truth at that moment. A raw nerve. She offered me something I used to beg for in silence. And now it felt… too late. Maybe disingenuous. Maybe self-soothing. I don’t know.

I’m not proud of how I reacted. I wish I had responded with more grace. But I also wish she had asked me sooner.

We have this dance now—built on obligation. I come home for the holidays. I help plan trips. I send money for birthdays. I split bills without complaint. I do my part. Because that’s what you do in our family.

But that doesn’t erase the longing I carried. It doesn’t erase the gap.

Sometimes, there is no closure. No perfect healing arc. Just a slow learning to live with the contradictions.

The reality is that this is never going to be something I’ll ever talk to my mother about. My Vietnamese vocabulary isn’t strong enough to talk about emotions. Her worldview isn’t flexible enough to fully hold mine. She’s had her own traumas. Her own wounds. I don’t want to place guilt on her shoulders—especially when she never had the luxury of unpacking her own pain.

There’s no tidy ending here. No resolution or moral to tie it all up. Some feelings don’t need to be fixed. They just need to be felt. We are all trying our best.

Even if sometimes..... our best is still broken.