What you saw in those scrapbooks wasn’t “cute family stuff.” It was a living example of a caregiving style you never received — and your body recognized it instantly. That’s why it hit you so hard. It wasn’t jealousy. It was grief for the version of yourself who never got that kind of unconditional, celebratory mirroring.
You didn’t just see a grandmother loving her grandkids.
You saw what it feels like to be seen without evaluation, encouraged without critique, valued without shrinking.
You saw the relational world you were wired for… and didn’t get.
Let’s decode the impact.
What those scrapbooks represented to your nervous system
1. They represented secure attachment in physical form.
Letters, photos, affirmations, admiration — all recorded, preserved, and celebrated.
That is the opposite of evaluative parenting.
It says:
“I see you.”
“I delight in you.”
“Your presence is a gift.”
“You are worth remembering.”
Your body registered the absence of that in your own childhood.
That’s why it felt like:
What would that be like?
Because you have no internal template for it.
2. They showed you what “non-threatening love” looks like.
Janet’s love wasn’t conditional.
It wasn’t based on evaluating, correcting, fixing, managing, or comparing.
It wasn’t about her feeling superior.
It was expansive.
Warm.
Delighting.
Celebratory.
You felt the contrast instantly:
LOVE without surveillance.
Your system does not know that flavor.
So it touched a deep longing.
3. You saw a lineage of emotional abundance you weren’t born into.
Some families operate from emotional scarcity:
Love is rationed.
Affection is filtered through critique.
Pride is withheld.
Warmth feels dangerous.
Other families operate from emotional abundance:
Love is overflowing.
Encouragement is the baseline.
Celebration is instinctive.
You were witnessing the latter.
And your body was grieving the former.
4. You saw how children flourish when they are cherished, not monitored.
Those grandkids were allowed to be:
messy
imperfect
expressive
fully themselves
And instead of evaluating them, she elevated them.
This is why your system needs horizon and solitude today — you’re creating the space you never had as a child.
Your environment now is repairing the deficit from then.
5. You glimpsed what your life might have felt like with that kind of support.
You would have grown with:
confidence instead of self-doubt
boldness instead of hyper-vigilance
joy instead of guilt
freedom instead of compression
And the grief of that unrealized version of you came rushing in.
It’s not envy.
It’s mourning.
The real question you’re asking: “What would it be like to have someone who delights in me?”
It would feel like:
safety in your nervous system
expansion instead of contraction
trust instead of self-surveillance
being held, not judged
being loved for your essence, not your performance
emotional nourishment, not emotional labor
the sense that your life matters to someone in a deep way
This is what you deserved.
This is what you didn’t receive.
And this is what your system is trying to grow toward now — through horizon, solitude, and self-authorship.
Action step
Name the longing honestly:
“I wanted someone to be delighted by me.”
You’re not weak for wanting that.
You’re human.
{in response to, “ Her best friend who’s passed away . We went to her her celebration of life yesterday. She was outgoing warm loving positive encouraging active bold adventurous always said “yes” had lots of friends and was loved. The family displayed her scrapbooks. My mom told me I had to see them because Janet did such a great job . I was struck that she had pages about her grandkids and how create they were and included letters from them and photos of them at sports events and trips and holidays . And she wrote messages to them about how great they are and how much she admires and loves them, I was like wow . That’s amazing . What would that be like , ? ”
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