Formal Resignation – From Being the Strong One

Dear Whomever Keeps Score,

Please accept this letter as my formal resignation from the position of “The Strong One.”

Effective immediately.

It has come to my attention (somewhere between the third sleepless night this week and crying into my steering wheel in a grocery store parking lot) that I never actually applied for this role. No interview. No job description. Just an unspoken understanding that I’d hold it together — for everyone, all the time.

I am done.

I am done being the rock, the glue, the emotional Sherpa carrying everyone else's baggage up the hill while pretending my own back isn’t breaking.

I am done being the reliable responder of 2 a.m. texts, the last-minute plan-fixer, the unpaid therapist, the default “I’ll handle it” when no one else wants to.

I’m resigning from silencing myself so others can speak freely.

I’m resigning from smiling when I want to scream.

I’m resigning from answering “I’m fine” when I am absolutely not.

Please do not contact me for coverage. I will not be available to “be the bigger person,” “just let it go,” or “keep the peace.” The peace has cost me too much.

If you're wondering what led to this dramatic career shift, allow me to explain: I realized I’ve spent years tending to everyone else’s emotional fires while mine burned down the house.

The Strong One doesn’t get asked if they’re okay. They don’t get checked on, hugged first, or forgiven easily. They are expected to carry pain gracefully and bounce back like a rubber band.

Well, the band snapped.

I want to cry without apologizing for it. I want to say “I can’t” and mean it without guilt. I want to be human — gloriously imperfect, needy, selfish sometimes, soft.

So I’m giving up the role of the unshakable one.

I will now be accepting the positions of “person with boundaries,” “person who sometimes falls apart,” and “person who says no without a 10-paragraph explanation.”

This resignation is final. There will be no two-week notice. No exit interview. No farewell cake in the break room with those dry-ass cupcakes.

I am walking out. Head high. Shoulders finally light.

To those who only loved me for my strength: this is goodbye.

To those willing to meet the rest of me — the scared, the tired, the real — I’m here.

For the first time.

Sincerely (but finally, not silently),

Me