I Was the Strong One Again

Dear Delyara, I was the strong one again today. I listened. I reassured. I stayed calm. I said the sensible thing. I held space. I made someone else feel safer in their feelings while quietly abandoning myself in mine. I know that sounds bitter, and maybe tonight I am a little bitter. The truth is, I am tired of being emotionally useful. I have spent so much of my life becoming the person people turn to because I am good in difficult moments. I know how to regulate rooms. I know how to carry tension without dropping it on the floor. I know how to make my own feelings wait until a more convenient time. The problem is that “a more convenient time” rarely comes. So by the end of days like this, I find myself alone with a backlog of unprocessed emotion and no real desire to explain it to anyone. Because the person everyone thinks is coping is often the person who has simply learned how to suffer neatly. I don’t want to be admired for that anymore. I want to be held without first proving that I am falling apart enough to deserve care. I want to not always be the one who knows what to say. I want, just once in a while, to be met before I become useful.