Man, oh man, somehow I'm back to talking about myself yet again. The redundancy is exhausting, but here we go. But what I am realizing is therapeutic because the more I write, the more feelings I didn't ever acknowledge come to life. So all in all, I'm realizing that these entries are for me as well.

Anyway. Strength? Phew. I am a strong woman. I know that now not because of the things I've carried but really because of the things I've let go of. Of course, I used to measure strength by the amount of pain I would hold on to. But now releasing it is 10 times harder. Enduring hardships as a kid is tricky. I don't know if during it that I was ever like, "Wow, I'm in this hardship and I'm overcoming it." It wasn't like that. It felt like, why me? It felt like, growing up before I was meant to. It felt like hating my own life before I got to live it.

When you feel unprotected when you're a child, it changes you. I went through a very hard time after dealing with trauma as a kid. I had a lot of anger, trust issues, and pure rebellion. In my mind, If no one else got me, I got me. I had to protect myself because I found out very early unfortunately that no one else would. So I think that I acquired strength as a shield to put over me but as I got older it became harder and harder to take off. It was something that I wore to cover me but at times it caged me. I was talking to someone recently and I said to them, being strong is exhausting. I don't think they fully understood what I meant. But being strong is the hardest mask I've ever had to wear. Because the truth is, I'm not that brave anymore because as quickly as life hardens, it simultaneously softens you at the same time.

I didn't need to be strong when I was a kid. I needed to be safe. I needed to be secure and happy. I needed to be understood and expressive. I needed to be valued and loved. I needed so many things that this life couldn't give me at that time. But I think the reason I had to be the superhero of my story was that I could be one for my kids one day.

At 21 years old, I still can't fathom why certain things happened to me. I think every day where I've been and what I've done. I try to retrace the lowest points of my life and what I've always found is it's connected to the highest points, too. Because the valley taught me lessons that mountain tops could never.