I’m Stronger Than I Look

What I’m learning about myself in my forties

I am soft. This is one of the first things you will notice about me. My body is curvy and round. My expression is kind and warm. I will touch your hand or arm as we talk. I hug everyone.

I’m so soft.

That softness can make it easy for the world to get in, it’s true. It hurts me, sometimes. A lot.

It doesn’t make me feel good about myself to get a dick pic in my email. It makes me feel sick inside. There’s little armor here. It gets me straight in my heart. An arrow to what little innocence I have left inside that I hold so dear.

It still breaks my heart when a lover betrays me or makes a hasty exit. Even with all the walls I erect, when I love someone, I clumsily construct those walls, making them easy to crumble. The pain of watching someone walk away tears at me until I bleed because I don’t know how to be hard enough to withstand that injury.

I freeze inside when someone yells at me or criticizes me — even when their behavior is unwarranted. I still have a tendency to believe other people’s words over my own. I don’t always have the strength to stand tall in my own fullness. The wind of other people’s words can occasionally blow me over.

And yet…despite this softness…or perhaps because of it…I am strong. I am stronger than I look.

Perhaps I’m even stronger than I know.

There are two common dynamics that seem to reoccur again and again in my life: people who come into it to take advantage of my softness, and people who come into it to protect this soft creature from the hardness of this world.

I have a long, long history of being manipulated, gaslit, abused, and deceived. It’s easy to do to people like me, I suppose. I don’t tend to ask a lot of questions. I often assume the best about people for no good reason other than that I cannot imagine that anyone would have bad intentions. And it doesn’t feel natural, in most cases, for me not to trust in everything another person says.

Even once bad behavior has begun, I still will often fail to recognize it for what it is. Oh, you’re sorry? You didn’t mean that? I misunderstood? I’m misinterpreting your actions? Okay, my bad. Please forgive me.

These hurt. They hurt every damn time.

What surprises me is the amount of people who come knocking on my door offering protective embraces, promises of backup, and healing companionship. Is this for me, I wonder? Or them? Or both of us? Do I even need it?

Well, yes, maybe I do.

But also: I am strong. I might not always do a good job at protecting myself, but I am strong enough to clean up the blood on the floor afterwards.

If no one ever came for me…I’d still be okay.

I know I seem delicate. I have been likened to a bird more times than I can count. Sometimes, a bird with a broken wing.

You see, I have severe anxiety that affects me every moment of every day. I’m scared of everything.

And I struggle with depression that occasionally pops up out of nowhere and makes it hard for me to engage with others — or even get out of bed.

I’m sensitive. Emotional. Open-hearted.

I tend to choose vulnerability. I tend to choose honesty. I tend to choose heart.

People who love me worry about me. Are they scared of the decisions that I make? Of the person that I am? Or are they scared of what the world might do to a soft little creature like me?

People who don’t know me at all also worry about me. There was no end to the stream of concerned, compassionate looks I got from coworkers I met at my last job, who no doubt, could read the pain on my face during that difficult period in my life — many of whom became dear friends who always took such good care of me. And there’s no end to the number of emails that come through my inbox from readers who are touched by my openness and who say they want to protect me from further hurt.

I understand this. I know how I appear. And hell…maybe I do need protection. Sometimes, I admit, I long for it.

But I’m learning something: I’m not a bird. And if I was, I definitely don’t have a broken wing.

Maybe I’m a delicate willow that gets beaten down to the ground sometimes by unrelenting wind and rain. But when the storm is over, I will stand again.

Don’t worry, friends. I am a lot stronger than I look.

© Yael Wolfe 2021

More on coming to know and love ourselves: