#oktocry

   These days I see a lot of social media posts on being the girl who is there for everyone else, faces her issues alone, and smiles even though she's crying on the inside.  There's a type of sympathetic lauding following such posts.  "I understand how you feel!"  "Stay strong!"  "I'm here for you!"  The idea of the strong, silent, secretly wounded female seems to be fairly pervasive in our currently overexposed society.  She's the antithesis to the emotionally needy woman that we're told we should never be.  She doesn't crack, she doesn't need, and she never ever shows just how much pain she's in. 

   It sounds terrible.  It sounds strong.  It sounds necessary.  

   A woman is often driven to this state by a distinct lack of resources.  There isn't enough money, enough time, enough emotional energy for everyone's needs to be met.  The discerning woman sees this gap, knows there isn't enough to go around, and tells them she's already eaten so everyone else can have one more bite.  There is something noble and sacrificial in this, and yet I believe we often take it too far.    

  We've taken what should be a response to crisis and stretched it out into the everyday.  We learn to need less and less during seasons of lack and like an emotional anorexic soon forget that we ever needed in the first place.  This forgetting, this going numb, it isn't a solution.  It's a slow death.    

  We don't need any less than we did before, we just forget it.  The need grows and grows until it consumes everything, only we're so unprepared for the reality and necessity of having personal resources that we don't even remember how to ask for help.  Chances are we've forgotten what help even looks like.    

   Strength runs out.  And once it does it becomes painfully obvious that it was never true strength to begin with.  It was fear and pride.  Fear that there would never truly be enough to satisfy.  Pride in the ability to go so long without.     

   This emotional masochism needs to be brought into balance.  There is nothing healthy or praise worthy about consistently denying having significant needs, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Yes, there will absolutely be seasons in life where cares and concerns need to take a back seat for the benefit of others, however we cannot let that be our default.  We also have to be willing to let others put their needs aside for ours.  If it doesn't go both ways then we aren't living in strength; we're living in bondage.      

   Admitting that there is something that you can't do alone takes far more strength than pretending you have it all.  It takes vulnerability.  It takes risking that the other person might not come through for you.  It takes humility and a willingness to look weak.  This type of strength increases your connections and never isolates, or diminishes your worth as a human being.

3/16/15

Yesterday was a hard day.  It was day two after chemo and that is usually the day I feel just horrible.  Add to it that my period should be here (though no sign of it, but was very emotional none the less).  I also made the mistake of showering that morning and seeing just as much hair in the drain as the other day, which literally defeated me.

My sister-in-law called and I literally broke down when she asked me how I was doing.  Her words to me, "I knew this part would get you." because she has a co-worker who said the hair issue is horrendous and she also said, "You do not have to be strong all the time."  How well she knows me.  I feel like I always need to be strong.  I literally apologize for crying when it gets me down.

My mother-in-law was next to me as I was talking and I saw her silently tearing too.  Because I think she knows how hard I try to stay positive and strong...  but I don't always win that battle.