RESILIENCE

H.E.R. DEFINITION
RESILIENCE, in the H.E.R. life, is staying fully yourself after you've been bent by hurt, not bouncing back untouched, but refusing to let the pain edit who you are.

So I was seeing this man. We'll call him Cobbler.

And let me tell you something about Cobbler - the banter was unmatched. We were quick, we were witty, we made each other laugh until it hurt. I could be completely myself with him. Silly. Sassy. A certified smart aleck, which, yes, he called me on constantly, and yes, he was right.

One day he tells me he's struggling to get himself to the gym. Sends me a picture of himself just... sitting there. Staring at the building. Not going in.

Now, I personally cannot motivate myself to save my life. I will stare at my own gym for days. But something about Cobbler staring at his gym lit a fire under me. I know he loves heavy metal. I know music is the thing that gets me moving. So I thought - what if I wrote him a song?

Not sent him a playlist. Not a motivational quote. A song. Written and recorded by me.

So I asked myself the real question: do I have the nerve to actually sing this thing?

Yes. Yes I do.

Forty five minutes later, I had written it, recorded it, and sent it. A voice memo that starts soft and sweet... and then I am screaming at this man to get his behind in the gym.

He loved it. Told me my voice was way hot. We were laughing, flirting, everything felt good.

Weeks went by. We had a little misunderstanding, the way people do. I cleaned up my side of the road. Owned my part, said my piece, put it out there with the same honesty I put into that ridiculous song.

His response?

A thumbs up emoji. I hate the thumbs up emoji, specifically in response to something I've said that warrants more than a thumbs up emoji. It's just so dismissive. But I digress.

Anyway. That was the last time I heard from him.

Now, I want to be honest with you, because that's what we do here. For a while after that, I was in my feelings. Deeply. If I'm being real with you right now, some days I still feel a little sadness about it. Recording this, thinking about it, I felt it creep back up on me while I was remembering the whole thing. That's just the truth.

But here is what I did not expect. Underneath the sadness, there was something else growing. Pride. I was proud of who I was in that situation. Because I want you to know, with other men, other situationships, I could feel myself holding back. Editing myself a little. Making myself smaller, safer, easier to swallow. But with Cobbler, I was completely myself. All the way. Silly, sassy, singing heavy metal motivational songs into a voice memo. That was me, unfiltered, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy every bit of it.

So when it ended the way it did, with no explanation, no closure, just a thumbs up and silence, I could have decided that being that open was the mistake. I could have decided the lesson was to build the walls back up, to never again hand someone that much of myself.

But I didn't do that.

Because here's what I actually learned. I have now tasted what it feels like to be in a situation with real reciprocity. Real fun. Real curiosity. Real interest. Someone who wanted to know me and was willing to be known back. And once you have tasted that, you know exactly what you are no longer willing to settle for.

Not long after, I was talking to someone else, and it was all good morning, how was your day, real surface level. No real questions. No real curiosity about who I am underneath the small talk. And I noticed myself doing something I have not always done. I did not shrink and accept it. I did not tell myself to be grateful for the attention. After a few days of that, I told him plainly, this isn't working for me, I don't see us being more than friends. And I have not heard from him since, and I am completely fine with that.

That, to me, is RESILIENCE. I didn't bounce back like nothing happened. What happened is the hurt didn't cost me the thing I value most, which is being fully, unapologetically me. I got to keep my softness and I got to keep my standards, at the same time. I got to grieve Cobbler and hold my boundaries with the next man, in that very same season of my life.

If you are out there right now nursing a wound from putting your whole self out there and getting silence back, I am not going to tell you it doesn't hurt. It does. It might for a while. But I want you to hear this from someone who is living it right alongside you. The hurt does not get to decide who you are allowed to be. You get to keep your softness. You get to keep your sass. You get to keep singing the ridiculous song. RESILIENCE is not about never getting hurt again. It is about staying exactly, fully, unapologetically yourself, regardless of the reception.