The Presence of Absence

I came across this phrase in a book I read last year and it’s stuck with me. It’s not a new concept necessarily. In visual art it’s negative space, in music it’s silence, Shel Silverstein wrote a story about it but in an emotional context it felt new to me. The phrase was used in a section about the felt sense of absence of key figures in your childhood. A lot of times it’s parents but at the root it’s missing those people in your life that give you a better sense of yourself, how you are seen by others and the reassurance needed to have and build secure attachment.

The result of that absence causes anxiety and insecurity in both plutonic and intimate relationships. For me, being more avoidantly attached, I can pull away from those relationships. Persons experiencing more anxious attachment may make bids for attention or ask for reassurance. Underneath the insecurity seems to come from similar places but it comes out in different ways. 

This piece is a representation of that distorted view we can have of ourselves. It’s not a reminder that we’re broken but that the way we view ourselves isn’t entirely accurate.