10|19|26Hey, Gem! How’s your heart? I pray it’s thriving. Let me tell you what’s been on mine.
Softness in the Middle of Everything x K.M.
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What does softness look like when life is still heavy? Do you ever wonder?
I used to believe softness would find me after life calmed down. After the bills were paid, everyone I loved was okay, and after the responsibilities loosened their grip, I figured I would finally have enough time to hear myself think. Beyond the demands, I imagined a gentler version of my life waiting for me.
Was I wrong for that?
A few evenings ago, I stood in the kitchen with my work bag still hanging from my shoulder. Dinner was getting cold on the counter while I answered one more message. My feet hurt, my mind was crowded, and I had already promised myself several times that I was finished for the day. So why the hell did I keep typing? Nothing dramatic happened. But still, that is probably why the moment stayed with me. There was no emergency forcing me to continue; I had grown accustomed to treating my exhaustion like background noise.
I talk a lot about deserving better from others, but I realized that I deserve better from me, too.
Something clicked inside of me, and I set the phone face down and sat at the table. My life still felt full of unfinished things, but for once, I did not force myself to finish alongside them. I recognized that as my softness kicking in; it wanted me to choose it—to let it shine on through.
I’m learning that softness does not require life to become easy. But it does ask me to stop making myself harder just because life is hard. For years, I wore competence like protection. I could work through disappointment, answer calls even when overwhelmed, and carry private pain into public places without letting it disturb anyone. People saw strength; I knew how much effort it took to appear untouched.
Researchers have described something similar as psychological armoring. In a study of 187 Black American women, greater armoring was connected to psychological distress and trauma symptoms related to gendered racism. The study also found that women who gave more support than they received tended to feel less satisfied with their support systems. I saw myself in that study.
Armor can sound like “I’m fine,” spoken before anyone has asked. It can also look like solving the problem alone because asking for help leaves room for disappointment. It can turn exhaustion into a private matter and receiving care into something that feels strangely uncomfortable. My armor has served me. It helped me function in rooms where vulnerability would not have been handled with care. Just like it taught me how to keep going when stopping was not an option. The difficult part has been admitting that I sometimes keep wearing it after I am safe enough to take it off.
Sometimes pushing through is necessary. You know, the deadline remains. The child still needs dinner, and we can’t miss the appointment. Not to mention, the bank does not accept emotional fatigue as payment. Yet I have also used necessity to avoid asking whether every burden on my shoulders still belongs there.
Gem, I have called myself independent when I was afraid of being disappointed. I have called it discipline when I was ignoring my body, and I have called it peace when I had stopped saying what hurt. Softness is making me more honest about those moments, asking me to recognize where life has placed weight upon me and where I have continued adding weight because carrying it all feels familiar.
These days, softness looks ordinary. It is allowing a call to ring when I have nothing left to offer the conversation. Eating before completing another task, resting before my body begins begging, and saying, “I cannot do that today,” without turning the sentence into an apology. It’s letting someone help without immediately searching for a way to repay them.
Softness is also telling the truth sooner. I am practicing saying that I am hurt before resentment has time to build a home inside me—learning to admit when I need reassurance, company, or a few hours without being needed. Dr. Kelly F. Jackson writes about intentional rest for women as a practice of refusal, restoration, and self-preservation. Her work places rest within the realities of gendered anti-Black racism and the systems that frequently depend upon Black women’s labor while neglecting their well-being.
That understanding has helped me let go of the idea that rest must be earned through complete exhaustion. There will always be something else I could finish. But softness enters when I decide that my well-being belongs on the list before everything else has been crossed off.
I wish I could say I choose gentleness every time. I still catch myself rushing through meals, holding back tears, and saying yes while something inside me is already tired. The difference is that I hear myself now. I notice when my shoulders rise, and my breathing becomes shallow. I notice when my patience with everyone else costs me patience with myself. And the moment my needs start feeling inconvenient. Then I try again, period!
Because sometimes softness is a full night of rest. Or crying without rushing to compose myself. Sometimes it is letting the dishes sit in the sink while I sit in a room where no one needs anything from me. Life does not become lighter in each of those moments. I merely stop requiring myself to become harder under its weight.
May these words find a home in your heart. ♡
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If this reflection met you in a season that still feels full, share it with another woman learning to hold herself gently while enduring what life has placed before her. Remind that Gem that she does not have to wait for an easier life to offer herself tenderness.
Until next time, thank you for allowing us to walk beside you through every season. May you discover forms of softness that can live beside responsibility, grief, uncertainty, and growth. Keep making room for yourself, even while life remains unfinished. – K.M.
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