Later That Night

Up until lately, I've considered myself a strong person.

What is a strong person, you ask? Or perhaps you wouldn't ask that, you would kind of assume to know what those two words mean when placed next to one another like so. A strong person is one who endures through trials and tribulations. A stong person is one who continues to make their way towards the light at the end of the tunnel, despite whatever darkness they have to walk through to get there. A strong person has an infallible faith that everything will indeed be alright.

I suppose I fit the above descriptions, but I have a new problem with them. Who's to say that I haven't just been faking this strength, that my continual drive towards the light is really just a continual escape route from the darkness? I think the truly strong thing would be to let myself get beaten down, to let myself get changed by the things that hit me. A strong person should be an emotional mess - hit over and over and not afraid to take the beating. A strong person calls for the beating, because they know that the truest strength is having the strength to learn from their mistakes.

And I don't know if I've learned from my mistakes. I don't know if I really meant to endure after all, but managed to do it because I knew nothing else. I didn't know enough to get angry when I was wronged. I didn't know enough to let go after the first two times I got pushed away. Why do I regret this now? Because I'm being told that I'm strong enough to get through anything, when I really have no idea if that's true or not. Anyone can get through anything, as long as they keep breathing and keep eating. But the strongest people will see the punch coming and not flinch - they'll let themselves get hit instead of pretending it's not happening.

What scares me is that I can't see the punch. A week, a month, a year from now, I'll look back and realize that I'm bruised, but was either too stupid or too strong to dodge the fist. I fear that I don't flinch because of my ignorance, not because of my strength. I fear I don't flinch because I can't see the punch until I've already covered up the resulting bruises - maybe I cover them up to pretend they never happened. But a truly strong person would face the punch eye to eye and take it, all of it, all of the hurt and the pain and the wonder of learned knowledge.

I suppose one day I'll be able to stand in the ring and see the fight that's coming at me. Hopefully by then I'll have figured out whether or not to fight back.