There are some words that reach our hearts before they even have the opportunity to travel towards our ears. Considered the fastest sense among humans, our profound sense of hearing acts almost instantaneously, yet, with the right words, this system malfunctions as the words bypass our auditory organs and instead, evoke a strong wave of emotion.

“I love you”
“I’m sorry”
“Thank you”

These are just a few examples of the words that when stringed into a sentence can pull at the very strings attached to our hearts. While these phrases may be the cause for the surge of emotion that someone’s heart releases, mine was never satisfied. Ironically enough, the words that carried the greatest power over me were the very ones that were never said out loud: “I’m proud of you”

My family’s avoidance of this phrase often had me wondering if we were simply incapable of feeling the emotion of pride. No matter the accomplishment, this phrase that was thrown around so often by others, was never uttered by my own parents. At some point, the concept of pride had become categorized as an anomaly in my household. Was it the emotion that I felt when I got an A on my math test? Or was it a delusion of the words that I yearned to hear? For so long, I held my breath for the words that seemed like they were never coming.

Slowly, my days became shaped around my persistent need to hear the words that I was convinced would alter the trajectory of my life. From hours that were meticulously spent studying for a letter that would adorn my test papers to my journey in becoming the “perfect” daughter, I lost all sense of accomplishment, replacing it with the numbing feeling of relief. Relief, that I had become one step closer to the words that I’d longed for.

Sixteen years of patiently waiting finally came to an end at my dining table as my parents and I sat around for dinner. The words came out of nowhere, so abruptly and unprompted, that it felt as though my ears were rejecting them.

“We’re proud of you”

There it was. The words I’d anticipated for so long now silently hung in the air. As my brain processed these words I couldn't help but notice that there was no epiphany accompanying them. There was no surge of emotion that went through my body. There was no sense of satisfaction. The confession was so casually admitted and received that it seemed unwaveringly anticlimactic to the moment that my brain had envisioned.

Within the span of these four words, I’d realized that the weight of their absence had shaped me far more than their presence ever could. Looking back, I no longer see the gaping hole where I’d imagined my parents’ pride to belong. Rather, I see the actions that showed me their pride, the ones that I’d blatantly ignored. From my mom's tradition of making my favorite Indian dessert of semiya payasam whenever I informed her of something I’d accomplished, to the seats that my dad took in various audiences with only a smile on his face and a camera in his hands, my parents never needed the words to express what they embodied.

Through the countless years I’ve spent mulling over these words, I’ve realized that it was never my parents’ pride that I hoped to hear one day. It was my sense of pride that I’d searched for under a mountain of expectations that tethered me to a narrative that was never satisfied with my accomplishments. The emotion that I had sought so desperately did not come not from someone else’s approval but from my own. Although my path to understanding this concept took a long-winded route, the ability to once again celebrate my achievements has made the journey worth the effort.

At the end of the day, there are some words that we have to admit to ourselves so that we can finally feel the weight of the emotion that runs through our hearts. For some, these words may pertain to their identity or to the people that they surround themselves with. However, for me, the only words that seem to appease this condition are three words: “I am enough”