Strong… But I Still Needed Someone to Hold Me

Strength doesn’t erase the need to be held.

People often tell me I’m strong.

They say it with admiration.With reassurance.As if strength is the highest compliment a woman can receive.

And for a long time, I accepted it without question.

Because strength was what kept me going.Strength was how I survived divorce.Strength was how I carried the weight of single parenting.Strength was how I showed up every day even when I felt hollowed out inside.

Strength became my identity.

But strength, when it’s constant, comes at a cost.

There were nights I cried quietly so my children wouldn’t hear.Moments when I swallowed my own fear because there was no one else to carry it for me.Days when I felt exhausted not from doing too much — but from being too much for everyone else.

Strong women don’t always fall apart loudly.We fracture silently.

There was a time when my strength wasn’t empowering — it was survival.It wasn’t something I chose.It was something I had to become.

Because when you’re the one holding everything together, you don’t get the luxury of collapse.

Even now, people ask me why I don’t date.

As if being alone must mean something is wrong.As if independence is a phase you’re meant to grow out of.

But the truth is simpler.

I’m tired.

Tired of being the emotional anchor.Tired of being the fixer.Tired of holding space for someone else while quietly disappearing inside my own life.

I don’t want to teach someone how to love me anymore.I don’t want to carry someone else’s healing alongside my own.

I want partnership that feels safe, not demanding.Presence, not potential.Softness that meets my own.

I don’t want to be needed.I want to be cherished.

I’ve been strong for a very long time.Now, I’m learning that it’s okay to want rest.To want gentleness.To want to be held — without having to earn it.

Strength brought me this far.But softness is what I’m choosing next.