I Regret How Often I Called My Own Withering “Resilience” Just Because I Was Still Standing

Dear Delyara, I was standing. That does not mean I was not diminishing. I see that more clearly now. The years of carrying too much. The years of understanding too much. The years of making myself emotionally inexpensive in rooms that benefited from me staying that way. The years of being the one who could tolerate, absorb, remain dignified, remain decent, remain calm. From the outside, it looked like resilience. From the inside, parts of me were quietly going underfed for years. I regret not noticing sooner that standing and flourishing are not the same thing. That endurance can become a lovely word for self-abandonment if no one interrupts it early enough. And I was not interrupted. Not enough. Not by others. Not by myself. That regret sits heavily in me now. Not to punish. To tell the truth.