day 16: strength

today, on the challenge, i get to discuss something difficult about my "lot in life" and how i'm working to overcome it. i think one of the major aspects of the hand i've been dealt in life is being strong. is this a bad thing? absolutely not. can it be difficult? totally. 

i've had some curveballs thrown my way; all of which lead friends, family, etc., to tell me, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." they were all right. those hard times did make me stronger, but guess what. that doesn't mean that i feel any less shitty about what's going on.

when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

that's great, too, but it sucks to have to feel like you have to be tough all. the. time. 

there for a while, i literally felt like i couldn't catch a break--that my only purpose on this earth was to take emotional hits. my grandmother, who i was extremely close to, passed away very suddenly. not even three months later, i found out that my dad had stage 4 throat cancer (and he wasn't even a smoker!!!). the two years following were an emotional hurricane of cancer treatments, and statistics, and hoping, and praying, and surgeries, and more surgeries, and procedures, and traveling, and medications, and having dad get a little bit better, only to find out that something else was wrong. it was emotionally exhausting.

i felt a lot of pressure. pressure to keep the tough persona up. pressure to "stay strong for dad." pressure to keep my mind focused on school (because i was in my senior year of college and trying to graduate). pressure to not just totally give up. pressure to not totally disengage myself from the situation. pressure to not become totally numb. there's a lot of work that goes on emotionally when you feel like you have to be everything. 

i'm really not trying to whine. 

for me, the way i found best to "overcome" the feelings of pressure and having to be tough all the time was to simply let go a little bit. as a bit of a control freak, you have no idea how hard that is for me. i've learned that it's okay to get upset. it's okay to cry. it's okay to be a little depressed. expressing those emotions doesn't mean that you can't handle what's been given to you. it just means that you're human, and that's okay. if i'm stressed, or scared, or feeling a little less than perfect, i feel that. 100%. then, once i've taken time to process those feelings, i'm able to move on and be entirely more productive than if i would have tried to totally suppress those feelings and be "strong." 

the ability to be hit with a situation that shakes you to your core and makes you question life or death or anything else, then take those feelings, express them, and come out on the other side with a better understanding of life and yourself. that is strength.