

Slice #9 (an excerpt)
When It's Hard to Feel Strong
Sometimes, even when I know strength is real,
I just can’t feel it.
I try to remember it’s there.
But everything around me is loud.
And other things inside me are louder --
They pile on, and that quiet feeling gets buried.
I’ve had moments where I thought,
“Maybe I just imagined it.
Maybe that strength was never really there.”
But I was wrong.
It was still there.
And it is still here!
It's just hard to hear under all the noise.
When it’s hard to feel strong,
Sometimes the best thing I can do is… nothing.
Stop trying to fix everything.
Just breathe.
And wait a little.
Then the strength shows up again,
not because I earned it,
But because it never left.
