I don’t want to be strong. Sometimes, I want to be weak. I want the permission to be weak. I don’t want to handle everything well. Sometimes I want be an emotional basket case. I want the permission to break down. I want to say- this is too much and I in fact cannot handle it. No, I don’t want to handle it. I don’t want it at all. I want to yell and piss and moan and stomp my feet because I got the shit end of the stick. And I don’t want to feel bad about it.
I don’t want to be so fucking strong anymore. Because it is too exhausting. I don’t want to hear “stay strong”, “hang in there”, “you got this”. What if I don’t “got this”? What if I don’t want it? The thing about being strong through mental strife, through trauma and crisis is that if you’re not, what’s the other option? Women are strong through hardship because there isn’t really any other choice. I don’t have the luxury of taking all the time off I need, to not worry about making money, I can’t let medical bills pile up, I can’t save it for another day. I can’t (as a self employed individual) take advantage of paid time off or sick days. I can’t call out. I’m it. If I’m not there, the moneys not there.
I don’t want to work myself to the point of emotional wreckage. I want to say when my body has had enough, when I can no longer take anymore and when I am giving in. I want to admit when I am in pain both emotionally and physically and not feel ashamed or like I am letting someone down. I don’t want to act as if something doesn’t hurt just because a million women have felt it before me. Everyone has a breaking point, but we shouldn’t have to wait to get there to give ourselves time to recover.
I don’t want to be ashamed to say- this scares me, I don’t feel like I’m in my power or I feel like I’ve lost control. There’s this guilt trip around being honest and naked with your authentic feelings. But I’m realizing that I am genuinely afraid to admit when I’m feeling weak. It means I’m vulnerable. It means I’m opening myself up to the possibility of breaking down. And then I might not be able to get myself to work and make it through a 12 hour day. What if, when I let myself get down there, to the bottom of that cave of vulnerability and transparency, what if I can’t get out? And what will everyone think of me when they see that I don’t have it together the way it appears I do?
Isn’t there strength in weakness? Then why is there so much shame in it as well? Why do we have to bottle up our worry, stifle down our nerves, suffocate our anxiety, swallow our tears, and tell everyone we’re okay when we aren’t. I think it’s partly because we know it makes others uncomfortable. People don’t know how to react to honesty. And they probably really don’t want to be the ones who crack your armored exterior. They’re not asking because they want to comfort you, they’re asking because it’s the polite thing to do. But they don’t ultimately want to know and they know that more likely than not, your response will be as polite and generic as the question.
Being strong is EXHAUSTING. It is. The stamina, mental and emotional muscle and control it takes to uphold that strength is an impossible task at times. It sits on our chests and fills up our hands until ache ensues and fatigue takes over. It eats away at the heart of our authentic, pure, truest emotions. So that you’re not only dealing with heavy shit, you’re also dealing with making it look like it’s light as a feather. Which just adds to the weight.
We need to start giving ourselves the permission to be honest. The permission to say exactly how we are feeling. Sitting with our emotions and giving them space to live and breathe isn’t enough. We need say it out loud. We need the permission to be sad, scared, worried, frantic, tired, overwhelmed, overstimulated, over-used, burnt out, cried out. We need the permission to be out of sorts, out of our element, unsure, unsatisfied, unhappy, unfiltered, unamused, unashamed and sometimes weak. And we need to let everyone know.