Your Weakness is Your Strength

I remember looking down at my spelling test, not seeing 100% but 80%. The tears began to bubble up inside me and come out in front of my classmates. Eye rolls and cry baby chanting began, and in these moments, I was labeled as too emotional. At first, I saw this as a plague because it was linked to the high exceptions I had for myself. In general, I expected to “be the best” and “change the world.” This was not a simple feat for my 7-year-old self. 

As I fast forward my life to my middle school and high school years, I still found my emotions challenging to control. When I had disappointed myself or not been the best in a classroom for my role model teachers, the tears came. If I got low grades, I mean anything less than a B because I had a least lowered my standards to a B, I would cry. There was no one there willing to help me with the amount of anxiety I felt. I was always told I was making something out of nothing and calming the hell down. 

Throughout those teenage years was when I really began writing without the influence of anyone else. I wrote little stories and poems to get me through my hard days when I knew no one would understand. I knew that if I told anyone what I felt, I would cry and be embarrassed. Friends would tell again to calm down and chill out and still offered no help or solutions. I poured myself on the page because the page didn’t tell me I was too emotional or too sensitive. 

During this time was when I trained myself to be the sounding board for others. I would ask people all kinds of questions until I knew them better than anyone else with offering up any of myself. These talks kept me focused on others instead of my terrible days. I never vented or spoke of my terrors. The focus on others buried these events deep. They no longer existed when my energy was going to help someone else.  

It wasn’t until after I was out of college that I had seen the benefits of being too sensitive, even just a few years ago. Granted, most of my relationships start with I’m a crier. I cry when I’m happy, sad, tired, and angry mostly. If you can’t handle crying, please move on because it will happen, and you cannot fix me. This is who I really am. Hence, I am still single, but I understand using this gift of emotion to help me as a writer. 

When I have gotten critics back about my work, perhaps they ask for more details in my setting. There might be a little something about brushing up my dialogue. However, readers always have felt whatever emotions I invoked in them. Emotions make readers care about the characters and draw them in on their journey throughout the story. 

There are so many things that people will call out a weakness in you. There is so much within you that you can use for good and your benefit in life, and stop letting others stop you in your path. Today I may have cried with every show I watched, but it was because I felt connected with these characters at my very being. If I am crying while I read your writing, consider it a compliment.