Who Am I Through My Own Eyes?

Sometimes I feel like I contradict myself when I write.

In one piece, I talk about how strong I have been. How much I have survived. How exhausted I am from having to be strong for so long.

Then in another, I talk about feeling weak.

And I wonder which one is true.

The truth is, I think both are.

When I look at myself through my own eyes, I see strength.

Sometimes I see too much of it.

I see everything I survived.

Everything I carried.

Every time I kept going when I did not know how I was going to keep going.

I know what it took to get me here.

But when I imagine myself through the eyes of certain people in my family—people who do not really know everything I have lived through—I feel weak.

I wonder if they look at me and see someone who struggles too much.

Someone who is too emotional.

Someone who should be able to handle things better.

Someone who is not as strong as they think a person should be.

And when I start looking at myself through their eyes, I begin questioning myself too.

That is where I get lost.

Because through my own eyes, I see someone who has had to be strong for far too long.

Through their eyes—or at least the way I imagine their eyes—I see weakness.

So who am I?

Maybe that is the wrong question.

Maybe I am not supposed to choose between strong and weak.

Maybe I am both at different times.

Maybe strength is not something I have to perform every day.

Maybe exhaustion does not erase resilience.

Maybe crying does not cancel courage.

Maybe needing help does not undo everything I have survived.

And maybe the people who only see one part of me do not get to define the whole of me.

I am beginning to understand that I have spent a lot of time measuring myself through other people’s eyes.

What do they think of me?

Do they think I am weak?

Do they understand why I struggle?

Do they know what I have survived?

But I do not want to spend the rest of my life trying to see myself through someone else’s eyes.

I want to learn to see myself through my own.

And when I do, I do not see weakness.

I see a woman who has carried too much for too long.

I see someone who is tired.

I see someone who is still healing.

I see someone who does not always know exactly who she is yet.

And I see strength.

Maybe more strength than I ever should have needed.

I am still learning who I am when I am not trying to prove either one.