Fragility

As a little girl, the word "little" didn't fit me.  Once I started growing, I was as big and bigger than my rough and tumble brothers.  Although I fit in more with the boys because of my size and strength, I was the ultimate girl during private time.  I loved the trappings of femininity but life as a tomboy didn't allow me to express that until much later.

So it was with surprise that fragility happened upon me as an adult.  In college, I lost a third of my body mass and became a wisp.  My warped idea at the time was that it took strength to resist food and it took strength to walk endless miles daily.  How silly the youth and how weak the body and psyche....

When life began in earnest and the security of Kentucky was left behind, strength transformed itself into endurance.  Grinding my way through life away from all familiarity and kinship required a strength  that I didn't know existed within me.  Fragile?  Not part of my belief system....

And yet, here I am being reminded by people who care for me that I am fragile.  A crystal goblet is fragile.  Aren't I just a plastic tumbler?  :-)  But humor doesn't work so much anymore.  After two years of being jacked up on some self imposed confidence, maybe it's time to recognize that I can stand down now.

The boogie man has been exorcised.  The MS monster has been denied success.  The kids are settling in nicely on the runway of life....  Maybe I have some time to soften up?

"Are you just being brave, Lisa?" my counselor asked me today.  Well, yes, because what other option is there?  The funny thing about fragility is that it takes a brave person to be weak as well as strong, vulnerable as well as resolute.

The shell I've built is so multi-layered and thick that it may be the greatest feat I can accomplish in 2013...the ability to drop the shell and expose myself to fragility.  TBD