Prompt – What did conflict look like in your home?
In the museum that was my family, exhibits were arranged with great care, but no one ever explained how to walk through the space and appreciate it. There were rules, but they were invisible. There were expectations, but they were never spoken aloud. Reverence was required, though no one ever showed what reverence looked like. Conflict rose and settled, mostly silent, like high blood pressure. It was present and deadly.
I was expected to know how to move, how to speak, how to respond, without ever being taught. Love was supposed to be understood. Respect was supposed to be automatic. No questions. If something felt off, it was never the environment. It was me. If someone felt unseen, it became my responsibility to fix it, even when I did not know what was broken.
There was very little modeling and no learning together. There was quiet judgment when the performance did not match the script that existed inside someone else’s imagination. So I studied faces and read spaces the way visitors study paintings. I read silence the way curators study cracks in marble. I anticipated needs that were never spoken. Over time, I confused vigilance with care. I confused fear with respect. I confused self-erasure with love.
Having my own family, I know that healthy families teach. They model love for each other. They meet you where you are. They invite you into the room instead of scolding you for not knowing the path. They offer maps. They offer language. They practice connection in the open, not behind glass. They make mistakes out loud. They apologize out loud. They are noisy. They are alive.
I am still unlearning the rules of the gallery. I am still learning that I do not have to bow to every display or stop at every exhibit. I am allowed to ask questions. I am allowed to exist in the room without shrinking to fit someone else’s idea of beauty. I am allowed to walk past what harms me. Little by little, I choose different architecture for my own family. There are far fewer exhibits and a hell of a lot more living. I teach my children that conflict is not something to fear. It is something we move through together. I make space for mistakes. I say what I feel and let them say what they feel. We practice beginning again. We learn in the open.
Sometimes the old museum haunts me with its polished floors and quiet shame. Sometimes I still find myself whispering in rooms that no longer require my silence. But I notice it now. I pause and I breathe. I set down the old way.
As an adult, I am beginning to believe something I could not have imagined as a child: love is not earned through performance. Love is not proven through suffering. Love grows in rooms where people are allowed to exist as they are.
The museum will always be part of my story, but I am learning how to walk out of the gallery without carrying the blame as a souvenir.
Muddled Soma 