Why do I keep thinking about something over and over again?
She didn’t know she was strong while she was being strong.
That came later. After. When the worst part was over and she could finally look back at what she survived. The strength wasn’t something she felt at the time. It was something she discovered in the wreckage, like finding out you’ve been walking on a broken ankle for three days.
While it was happening, she just kept moving.
We do this. We endure things we didn’t think we could endure, and we don’t give ourselves credit while we’re in it. We save the recognition for later, when it’s safe to look back. When the moment requires everything we have, we don’t stop to marvel at ourselves. We just show up.
And then years pass, and we realise what that was.
She calls herself strong now. Past tense. “I was strong.” Not “I am.” As if strength is something you use up, something that lives in specific moments and then disappears when those moments end.
But what if it doesn’t work that way? What if the strength that got her through that time isn’t something she lost. just something she hasn’t needed to see again yet?
We judge ourselves for not feeling brave while we’re being brave. We think strength is supposed to announce itself, supposed to feel like armour. But most of the time it just feels like getting through Tuesday. And then Wednesday. And then the week after that.
She didn’t know she was strong. But her body knew. Her hands knew. The part of her that kept choosing to stay, to try, to not give up. that part knew.
What if recognising your own strength years too late still counts?
There’s a particular loneliness in surviving something and not knowing you’re surviving it. You do what you have to do. You make it through. And only later, when someone else names it or you see it written in your own handwriting, do you realise what you were carrying.
Strength doesn’t always feel strong. Sometimes it feels like confusion. Like doing the next thing because you can’t think of what else to do. Like showing up even though you’re not sure why.
The people who say “I don’t know how I got through that”. they got through it. That’s the how. They just didn’t recognise themselves while they were doing it.
Maybe we need both versions. The version who survives in real time, and the version who looks back and finally sees what that cost. The first version doesn’t have time for reflection. The second version doesn’t have to carry the weight anymore. Both are true. Both are you.
Sit with this:
When have you looked back and been startled by your own endurance? What moments do you not give yourself credit for because you were just trying to get through the day? And what would it mean to believe that the strength you showed once is still in you now. not used up, just waiting?