![]() ![]() Since my mother so gracefully carried us through our survival phases, I now have the luxury being able to sit down and reflect on not only how her strong will shaped me, but also how much I want to incorporate that independence into other parts of my existence. While there's not a set definition for the term, the idea behind softness is fairly simple: living your life in a way that makes space for your vulnerability, and by extension, your inner peace. Recently, the concept of "softness" has shown up on my social media feed, and has been more widely discussed among communities of color - primarily among Black women. I learned that I needed to allow myself a plethora of vulnerable moments in order to build a community. Settling into a new city during the busiest year of my life as a grad student has forced me to confront that my ideal of strength leaves no space for my humanness, and often leaves me isolated and burnt out. My obsession with perfectionism and embodying this picture of strength has been most challenging this past year, especially after starting grad school during a pandemic, when my functionality and mental capacity has felt lower than it's ever been. But in my mind, that would mean I'm admitting defeat - that I'm not actually handling everything all that well. There have been countless times when a solution to my problems has simply been to ask for help - to allow myself to need. I fear allowing myself the luxury of genuine vulnerability. I fear inconveniencing the people around me. But, more importantly, I wasn't aware of how I was internalizing some of the expectations that came with our roles.Īs an adult, I know that our family dynamic molded and blessed me with a fierce independence and strong will, but it also crippled me with needing to uphold an ideal that hasn't always felt authentic to me. I wasn't always conscious of the meaning connected to the roles we played in each others' lives and how they affected our dynamic. We were a party of two, an only-daughter-and-single-mother duo almost as close as Rory and Lorelai Gilmore. If we ever struggled financially - or struggled in general - I'd never know about it because she always shouldered the burden without any indication of stress. Whenever she felt sad, she'd channel her energy into something productive, like painting our bathroom walls. She uses fashion as armor, and has the type of walk that lets you know she's always headed somewhere important - things she eventually passed on to me. If the world is a scary place, then my mother is electrifying. My teachers would question these works of art, but in my eyes, my mother towered over everything - taking it all in stride with a silent, unfaltering strength. When I was in kindergarten, I always drew my mother to be as tall as the whole paper - and all my other family members were always drawn significantly shorter than her. ![]()
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