When I started running, I doubted my strength. Each run was a test to see if I was strong enough to make it around the course just one minute longer than the time before. Each run made me stronger and stronger and finally, after all these years, I realize I AM STRONG enough to run! Is it still hard? You know it is. But I never doubt my ability to bear it and complete my goal.
In life too, I am finally discovering my strength. If you had asked me years ago if I would be able to handle some of the things life has thrown my way, I would have told you that there was no way I was strong enough. But now I am here to tell you how wrong I was. As life gets hard, I get strong. When faced with devastating events, I can bear them. Don't get me wrong, it isn't easy. Just because I can bear it doesn't mean I don't feel it. Every now and then I have to lock myself in the car and have an Adele moment.
I realize now that being strong doesn't mean pushing your feelings aside, it means feeling everything, but pushing through anyway. When life throws me days that should bring me to my knees, it's as if I can feel my spine steel and my feet root to the earth below me. I have a physical reaction to the sadness, fear, and doubt. That reaction is my inner strength letting me know I can do this.
I know now that I was born with this inner strength. It was not something I earned or cultivated. The steel inside of me has always been there. I didn't know it before because I had never had to call on it. But once it was needed, the strength inside was undeniable.
In finding this strength, I have started feeling more connected to all of those around me. Knowing the pain, the uncertainty, and the loss we will all eventually face and knowing the inner strength that we all share, has made me realize how same we all are. I feel especially connected to the the strength of all women. I salute the strength of all mothers, wives, and daughters. I am in awe of what we are capable of enduring. On especially tough days, I feel as if I am channeling my own mother and I am finally able to fully understand and appreciate her strength. Perhaps that is where my strength has come from. Just maybe the strength of my mom, my grandmothers, their mothers mothers, and so on has been passed down to me and through me. I am strong because WE ARE STRONG.
You are amazingly strong, and I am proud and humbled. If I am strong, it is, as you say, because my mother was strong, and her mother was strong and so on. Thank you. You can now skip Mother's Day, my birthday, and next Christmas. I've had my presents and my cards. Love you, a very proud mother indeed. Yours.
ReplyDelete