i wanna see you be brave wrote:most of your confidence comes from others, you realize, while you're idly sitting on your daybed in one of the only windows in your apartment and your hands are cupped around a mug of steaming hot coffee.
your friends, your family--they give you strength when you fall to your knees, hopeless and unable to defend even yourself. they lift you up and dust off your jeans and, when you need it, give you means to fight back. not with weapons, with words.
your mother, basically a living stereotype yet unique and individual and different in her own ways. she used to sing lullabies to you when you were a child, inspiring and empowering as much as they were mystifying and clearly fantasy. she kissed your forehead each night, made you breakfast every morning until you were thirteen, and sang and danced with you until you were out of the old family home. she taught you patience, kindness, and empathy. she taught you how to give yourself and others pride, safety, comfort, and someone to lean on when in need.
your father, ever the hard worker and a family man at heart. he protected you, gave you courage, gave you strength, made you brave. he gave you the skills to be someone who could fight. and fight you found yourself often doing, back in highschool and middle school and even elementary. he never discouraged you, but often asked you, "was there another way?" he taught you mercy as much as he taught you justice, fairness as much as he taught you revenge, taught you how to make peace as much as he taught you how to make war.
your brother, he taught you the add-on's, the additions, the extras, yet they were very necessary. he taught you caution when you and him would tip-toe to avoid your parents or someone you didnt like. he taught you attentiveness when he told you to, for once, stop talking and listen to what was around you, to the sounds of nature and the city not far away and even the sound of your own breath. he taught you stability when you felt yourself stricken to your knees with grief, and he was the one to pick you up and set you straight, said, "this is not the sister i know. you are stronger than this. you are stronger than them."
you smile softly, fondly, nostalgia rolling off you in waves as you remember all these things that, for the longest time, seemed on the edge of the cliff to forgetting them completely.
you are confident because others are confident in you, and that is what makes you strong, makes you brave, makes you believe that one day, things will be different, be better. that is all you can hope for, you have learned, and a day doesnt go by that you dont wish for it.
you are confident that one day, it will, and you are confident in yourself that you'll be there to see it happen.
