Strength

Sometimes strength isn't a lion's roar, we aren't transported on the battle cries of an army fueled by rage. It isn't in one single heroic act that changes the direction of fate. These instances can transport you far in change, becoming, growing, unravelling. But sometimes strength isn't that. Most times strength is quiet, and broken. It is in the moments where you feel as though you have given all you can, and the relentlessness of living asks for more. It is the broken, bruised moments where you are astonished you are still standing, when you feel like you can't possibly handle one more thing.. .and then one more thing happens. It's in the tiny voice that whispers "keep going", "don't stop", "one more step", "one more moment". Just survive one more moment. It is taking my shattered heart and haphazardly cobbling it back together to offer to my kids, hoping they won't see the cracks.

As a parent my greatest moments of strength are the moments I feel most weak. When my daughter is crying in my arms and I am crying silent tears over her shoulder. It is that moment, when I chose not to run, but to face the tears, the mess, the sadness, face on knowing I cannot take her hurt away, but instead hold her through it. Because maybe strength isn't how hard you can hit back, but how many hits you can take and keep going. Maybe it isn't about how heavy the weight is, but how long you can carry it for the people you love, until you get stronger and it doesn't feel so heavy anymore, or you can hand off some heavy to someone else.

And maybe failing isn't failing, it's existing. It's living. Because true living, the heartwrenching, crack you open and spill you out into the world kind of living, can't happen in the safe cozy nest. Living requires risk, and risk requires bravery, and bravery requires you to be scared shitless and do it anyway. My marriage failed because I kept it in a nest. I ignored that little voice that called me to more until it was screaming so loudly I couldn't ignore it anymore. That voice called me to life, not an easy life, not a picture perfect life, not a certain life., but an existence with truth breathed back into lungs that hadn't filled in years. It resurrected the person with hopes, with dreams, with the kind of strength forged not in battle, but in the steady heartbeat of staying in the hurt one more moment. Those one more moments sewn together is living. People want absolutes to happiness. This car, that house, this marriage, this job. Those are not a life. Those are islands in an ocean. They are wonderful to visit and create, but real living comes in the oceans in between those momentous moments. The vast sea of ordinary days, the storms that turn your world upside down, the riptides of emotion that catch you off guard and suddenly steer you off course. Maybe steering you so off course you cannot even see your islands of security anymore and you are forced to rebuild and rediscover, you are forced to forge a new way, a new path, a new person. Creating layers of yourself, this is how we grow. This is how we teach others to step into the ocean with us, because there is beauty in the mess.

There is something that keeps the tiny ember of "one more moment" burning. Hope. Hope that it will get better, hope that creating a life worth living, is, well, worth it. Hope that the hurt will pass, and next time it won't hurt so much anymore. Hope that there is a reason that things fall apart, maybe they are falling into place, faith that it will be okay. There is humanity in the hurt, and the healing. Suffering is a human condition. The sad part is we have been taught that there is nobility in suffering in silence. However, in my limited experience the opposite rings true. There is power in the fragility. Because when one person is brave enough to share their hurt, the bravery is catching, and before long there is a collection of broken hearts willing to witness the pain and begin to mend it.

So no, sometimes strength does not roar. Sometimes strength whispers, and on the wings of those whispers change is set free.