Scaffolding of Function

Somewhere along the way, I stopped kicking and screaming.
Not because the world softened — but because I learned that noise makes people uncomfortable. That fire in a woman becomes hysteria if it burns too visibly.

So I folded. Slowly. Like paper creasing itself into something more acceptable.
But I wasn’t always like this.

There was a time when I flinched loudly. When I barked back at unfairness with a ferocity that startled even me. My voice was sharp, my edges untamed — and still, I knew what was right. 

It was the girl in me who knew how to fight.
The woman in me learned how to endure.
And somewhere between the two, I mistook silence for strength.

I've often been called strong.
“Strong-willed.” “Strong personality.” “Strong sense of self.”
But it never sits right.
Not because I’m not resilient — I am — but because the word feels like a mislabel. Like someone’s describing the walls, not the woman inside them.

Because the truth is: the calm isn’t calm.
It’s calculation.
And when I look back at the moments I was most “determined,” I was actually terrified.

There’s a jagged energy under my skin that never fully settles.
It watches. Prepares. Plays out every possible scenario — plan A, B, C, even the one where the earth caves in and I’m still holding everyone’s weight.

That’s not strength. That’s survival.
And I don’t say that to diminish it — survival is a skill.

So what is determination, really?
Is it the sprint? The strategy?
Or is it the decision to quietly stay —
To stay in the discomfort,
stay in the conversation,
stay in the room when your whole body screams to run?

I used to think survival mode was a weakness.
Now I think it’s the muscle memory of women who were never handed a map.

I’ve become very good at masking.
On the outside, I look composed. But inside, I’m often drowning in a silence I’ve learned to carry.
I’ve stopped asking for directions.
Stopped expecting someone to show me how to glue myself back together.

But some days…
Some days I wish I could walk into a room, place my heart on the table and have someone say,
“Ah yes. I know this kind of tired. Here's where we start.”

I don’t want pity. I want a path.
Not a thousand coping mechanisms. Just one small instruction.
One step.

So I’ve built a scaffolding of function.
I get the milk. I answer the messages. I carry on.
I’ve made peace with a kind of fragility —
Not the breakable kind, but the kind that’s forced to bend in secret.
The kind that holds its breath in the school run queue.
The kind that cries only in locked bathrooms.
The kind that keeps going anyway.

There is a version of me that doesn’t want to be carried, but does want to be guided.
Who doesn’t need someone to fix it — but longs for someone who sees the cracks and says,
“There’s still a map. We’ll find it together.”

Because somewhere in the tangle of fear and perseverance, there is still a kind of faith —
The quiet belief that I will always find a way forward.
Even if I have to walk it afraid.