I Regret How Often I Mistook Endurance for Character

Dear Delyara, For years, I thought surviving quietly made me strong. Taking more than I should. Understanding more than was fair. Staying longer than I wanted. Absorbing disrespect in work, love, and family because I knew how to explain it in ways that made me sound wise and other people sound complicated instead of harmful. I see now that a lot of what I called strength was just tolerance with good manners. That is hard to face. Because it means I participated in my own reduction more than I want to admit. Not maliciously. Not knowingly. But I did. And regret is not only sorrow for what happened. It is sorrow for what you helped continue because the version of you at the time had not yet learned that dignity sometimes looks much less patient than people taught her it would. That regret visits me often now. Not to punish me. To tell the truth.