Missing People

For years, I've been trying to figure out why I miss people and why I don't. Because there have only been two instances of truly missing people in my life. One was my adoptive family, the second is my current roommate.

I blamed foster care on my lack of missing people. But is blame really the right word? I think I've finally figured it out.

There are two commonalities in when I miss someone:
-I *really* care what they think about me
-I am afraid that the distance will affect our relationship

This means that in order to miss someone, I have to believe that they are willing to let the fact that we haven't seen each other in a long time affect how they feel about me. Which means all the people for whom I don't miss but I do care about, I don't feel afraid that they will do that. I've had it all backwards. The people I care about but don't miss are the people I really need in my life.

Luckily, with my adoptive family, we've gotten to a point where I'm not afraid that they will cut me out. So I don't miss them when they're gone anymore. I've never really missed my biological family, because I've always been of the firm belief of "once family, always family". I can't lose the status of being their family, that right is mine from birth. And our family has strong ties; always have, always will.

So to anyone I care about but I say "I miss you", it's not this gut-wrenching I need to be there right now missing. It's more a light, "I wish we were together". The gut-wrenching need is a bad thing. The light desire is so faint it's hard to tell it's there. Because I've trained myself to not want what I know I can't have. Unless there's something I can do to work towards it, and then I only mildly want it, in such a way that it's hard for me to remember that I do, but occasionally I feel the desire to spur me into working towards it again.

(sorry if this isn't very coherent, woke up early and couldn't sleep till I wrote it out)