Strong yet vulnerable

By Arpita Mishra

Strong, self-reliant women have the trait of doing everything on their own. They are in charge of their own lives. Dependency and weakness are not concepts that they recognize. At least it was her perception of a strong woman. Her prior knowledge, betrayal, and, of course, podcasts are to thank for this. Maybe that’s the reason she used to be afraid to let her guard down. It’s like going to a battle field without a shield. Except there was no battle field; instead, there was an emotional connection, and instead of a shield, it was the barrier that she had erected around her vulnerable heart. Rarely does someone get to see her lovely heart, which is full of curiosity and loves to watch fireworks and dance in the rain. She occasionally uses her sarcasm, which is not less than electric, to add further protection. She was difficult to handle, difficult to understand, and difficult to put up with.

That day her love told her "you can handle being alone…in fact an independent girl like you don’t need anyone", Two words made her question her reasoning – ‘independent’ and ‘alone’.

"Strong women... do they always end up being alone?"

The thought of being alone for the rest of her life was haunting her at that moment. Maybe she was done being the strong woman and wanted to be hugged like a puppy. She was trying so hard to put together her broken heart. The pieces from her previous heartbreaks were big. It was easy to glue them together and maintain her sanity. In order to prevent the anguish from penetrating those fissures and shattering it from within, she decided to try a little bit harder this time and fight it. However, it's possible that the grief has somehow permeated them. This time, new fractures were growing gradually and steadily, inflicting unbearable anguish on her as punishment for previously being able to ignore the pain. It became more difficult for her to glue the large pieces together as they broke into a million smaller ones. In between, she made an attempt to put her hand over her heart in an effort to stop it from breaking... It seems as though the more she struggled to withstand the pain, the more it insisted on being felt. She was quickly split apart like a puzzle, only the parts were multiplied into millions, challenging the person to not even try to piece it back together.

By Arpita Mishra