Strong Enough

Strength is often celebrated, but rarely examined.

This episode explores what happens when resilience becomes second nature—when responsibility, grief, debt, healing, friendship, and survival begin to blur together.

From persistent muscle spasms and health anxiety to inherited responsibilities and the pressure of always being "the strong one," this conversation sits with the reality of carrying more than one person was ever meant to carry alone.

At its heart, this episode is about questioning what strength really means.

Is strength pushing through no matter what?

Or is it knowing when to set something down?

Is it carrying everything?

Or trusting that some things were never meant to be carried alone?

A reflection on grief, growth, Pride, hope, and the ongoing search for a life that contains a little more ease.

Because maybe being strong enough doesn't mean carrying more.

Maybe it means finally allowing some of the weight to be shared.

If this episode felt familiar in any way—like your mind, your room, your routines, or your quiet—you’re not alone in it.

You can reach out anytime at 7amkingsil@gmail.com or on Instagram @abstract_catalyst. Messages don’t need to be perfect. They don’t need to be important. They just need to be yours.

Everything sent gets read. Even if it takes time to sit with it.

And wherever you are right now—whether you’re moving fast, standing still, or somewhere in between—you don’t have to force clarity out of it today.

Just keep going gently.

Even if it’s messy.

Even if it’s uncertain.

Even if you’re scared.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I think I'm afraid to stretch. I've had this spasm in the back of my right thigh for months. Not a cramp, not exactly pain, just there. Some days it's subtle, some days I barely notice it. Other days it feels like somebody buried a tiny motor in the back of my leg and forgot to turn it off. Sometimes it keeps me awake. Sometimes it wakes me up. Sometimes it's the first thing I notice in the morning. Sometimes it's the last thing I feel before I fall asleep. I've tried sleeping more, I've tried massage, I've tried drinking more water, then more water, then even more water. At this point my kidneys are probably begging me to calm down. Nothing seems to make it completely go away. It just stays. And the strongest part of it is it seems to get its angriest right after I stretch, which has made me a little afraid to stretch these days. Which sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud. I know, trust me, I hear it too. But lately every time I stretch the wrong way, my body decides it's had enough of my nonsense. Just a few days ago I stretched my neck, not aggressively, just a normal crack and stretch situation. The kind people do every day without thinking about it. And almost immediately my neck locked up. Not stiff, not sore, it locked. I could feel the bulge in the muscle in the side of my neck strong and angry, like somebody reached into my shoulder and twisted something tight. I sat there for almost an hour trying to breathe through it, trying to massage it out, trying to move my neck in other directions to relieve the tightness. And I was trying not to panic and trying not to move the wrong way, just trying not to make it worse. And ever since then, I've been hesitant. Like my body remembers before my brain does. Like it's saying, Absolutely not. Do you remember what happened the last time? Hi, and welcome back to Even If You're Scared, where we talk about the things that we're still trying to make sense of. I'm still, and lately I've been paying attention to my body in ways I never used to. Every ache gets my attention, every pain gets my attention, every strange sensation, every headache, every twitch, every little thing. Because we thought my mom was healthy. She was active, she meditated, she walked, she drank tea, she took care of herself, and then one day she wasn't. So now my brain does this thing where it immediately starts trying to connect dots. This pain means this, this ache means that. Maybe this is serious, maybe this isn't serious, maybe I'm fine, but maybe I'm not. It's fucking exhausting. Because I don't exactly, I don't, I don't actually want to live that way. I don't exactly know what this means, but I don't I know I don't want to be afraid of my own body. I don't want to analyze every sensation like I'm trying to solve a murder mystery. I want to trust myself again. I want to trust my body again. I want to stretch without negotiating with my nervous system first. But that's where I am right now. And I think that's the thing nobody tells you about grief. Sometimes grief doesn't look like crying, sometimes it looks like suspicion. Sometimes grief moves into places you don't expect, into your routines, into your relationships, into your body, into your thoughts, into the way you move through the world. And the truth is I worry a lot more than I used to. Not constantly, not every minute, but enough. Enough that I notice it, enough that I know it's there. And when I catch myself spiraling, I usually hear my mom. Not literally. At least I don't think literally. Though honestly, who knows anymore. I just know that sometimes I can hear her in the way I remember her, the way she'd hum when she was thinking. That little hum. The one that meant that she already knew the answer, but she was waiting for me to catch up. And I can hear her laugh, I can hear her saying, Baby. Because sometimes she always managed to fit an entire conversation into one word where I knew exactly what she was saying. And when things feel overwhelming, I can almost feel what it was like laying my head in her lap, looking up or looking out, listening to her, knowing that even if I was stressed, even if I was scared, even if I was making a complete mess of something, she believed that I'd figure it out. Not because she thought I was perfect, she definitely knew better than that, but because she trusted me. And that's something I miss, not just her. I miss her belief in me. Because lately it feels like there's a lot of things asking for belief, a lot of things asking for attention. There's a lot of things asking for energy, and sometimes it feels like everybody needs something. My sisters need something, my nieces need something, work needs things, bills need things, life needs things, and I'm not complaining, not really. I love my family. I would do almost anything for them, but I think I've spent so much of my life being responsive that sometimes I forget to ask myself what I need. Not what needs to get done, not what's urgent, not what someone else needs. What do I need? And the answer isn't always obvious. Sometimes I think what I need is rest, then I rest and I realize I'm anxious. Sometimes what I think I need is solitude, and then I get solitude and realize I'm lonely. Sometimes I think what I need is company, and then I get company and realize I'm overstimulated. I think my needs are playing hide and seek with me, honestly. And somewhere inside of it all, I've started noticing something uncomfortable. I've started noticing the silence, not all silence, specific silence, the silence from people I thought would reach out, the silence from people I thought would check in, the silence from friendships I thought were stronger than this. And I don't say that from a place of anger, I really don't. I think it's more disappointment than anger, maybe sadness, maybe confusion. Because I keep finding myself asking the same question, not why aren't they helping me, but did I matter to them in the way that they mattered to me? That's a harder question. Because there are people that I've shown up before, people I've celebrated, people I've sat through heartbreak with, through loss, through confusion, through chaos, and lately some of those people feel very far away. Not geographically, emotionally. I keep wondering if some friendships end quietly, no argument, no dramatic fallout, no big conversation, just distance, just less. Just one day realizing that you haven't heard from somebody in months, and neither of you seem to know how to bridge the gap anymore. I don't know, maybe that's adulthood, maybe it's life, maybe people are carrying things I can't see. I'm trying to leave room for the possibility too, because I know what it feels like to disappear into survival mode, but I'd be lying if I say that it doesn't hurt. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't notice. And maybe that's part of what this season of my life is teaching me. Not that every relationship is meant to be carried forever. Not every friendship survives every version of who you become. And maybe, just maybe, part of growing up is learning the difference between holding on and holding space. Because those aren't the same thing. I think that's what I've been trying to learn lately. The difference between carrying something and caring about something. Because those aren't the same thing either. And for most of my life, I don't think I knew there was a difference. If I loved someone, I carried it. If somebody was struggling, I carried it. If there was a problem, I carried it. If there was a plan that needed to be made, I carried it, and for a long time I was proud of that. Honestly, I still am. I like being dependable. I like being the person people can call. I like being useful. But usefulness can become a habit, and habits are funny because you stop noticing them for a while. You stop noticing how much energy they're costing you. Lately I've been realizing how much my day is spent thinking about somebody else's needs. My sisters, my nieces, my friends, coworkers, my partner. Even when nobody is actively asking me for something, part of my brain is already planning, already preparing, already trying to make life easier for them. Make it easier for everyone I love. And that's beautiful, I think. But it does get heavy. Because eventually you look up and you realize you spent so much time making sure everybody else has a place to land that you haven't really checked where you're landing. And if I'm being honest, I think that's part of why certain friendships have been sitting so heavily on my heart lately. Because the older I get, the more I understand that everybody is carrying something. Everybody. Life is expensive, people are overwhelmed, people are grieving, things that they never talk about. People are trying to survive. I understand all of that, I really do. But understanding it doesn't make it hurtless. Because there are moments where I look at my phone and I think, damn. You know what happened. You know what this last year and change has looked like. You know how my life changed, and I still haven't heard from you or barely heard from you. Not a text, not a call, not a check-in, not even a hey, I've been thinking about you. And that hurts. Not because I'm entitled to anybody's time, not because I think the world revolves around me, but because I thought I merit more than the silence suggests. Maybe that's uncomfortable because I know how I show up for people I love. I've made calls when I was exhausted. I've checked in while my whole life was falling apart. I've made room when there wasn't really room to give. Not because I expected it in return. It's just because that's what love looks like to me. That's what friendship looks like to me. And I guess a part of me believed if the situation were reversed, some of that would find its way back to me. Maybe that's naive, I don't know. But I don't think it's unreasonable. I don't need everybody, I don't need a crowd. Truthfully, sometimes I don't even need advice. I just need somebody to poke their head in the room and say, Hey, you good? And if it's no, just sit with me for a minute. That's all. What I've started noticing quietly is the difference between people who stay present and people who only exist in a memory of who they used to be in your life. Distance is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. Honestly, I think about it all the time. My partner recently asked me to stop telling her I miss her so much. Not because she doesn't care. Not because she doesn't want to hear from me. Not because anything is wrong. It makes her sad. It reminds her that we can't be together right now. And when she told me that I understood immediately. I really did. Because every time I say it, it makes me sad too. It's just that saying it has always felt like a way to acknowledge the feeling. Like if I name it, I can put it somewhere. Like if I say I miss you, then the feeling gets to exist outside of me for a moment instead of bouncing around inside my chest all day. So now I'm learning a new language. Not a different love, not less love, just a different way of holding it. And that's harder than I expected because the truth is I miss her all the time. Not dramatically, not in a movie scene kind of way, just constantly in small spaces. When something is funny, when something terrible happens, when I make a cocktail I know she'd love, when I hear something that immediately makes me think of her when I wake up, when I go to sleep. She's woven into the fabric of my days, and that's a beautiful thing. And my love, if you're listening, please ignore this part. This one doesn't count, okay? I'm just in my field. But beautiful things can ache too. I think adulthood has been teaching me that lesson over and over again. The things that matter most are usually the things that are make us most vulnerable. And vulnerability has a funny way of making you think a lot about your future, what you're building, what you're carrying, what you're trying to make possible, which is probably why I've been thinking about money so much lately. Because money isn't really money anymore. Money is time, money is possibility, money is distance, money is access, money is whether or not I can get on a plane, money is whether I can breathe. And I've got debt, a lot of it. Enough that it sits in the background of most decisions I make, like static, not loud enough to dominate every thought, but always there, always humming, and if I'm being completely honest, that feels a lot like failure to me. I know that's not entirely fair, but life is more complicated than that. But that's how it feels sometimes. Like progress delayed, like dreams standing in line, waiting for their turn. Because every dollar that goes towards correcting an old decision, it's a dollar that can't go toward a future one. And fuck, that's hard. Especially when you're trying so hard to build something. The thing that sits underneath all of this is that I'm trying to build a life while still actively living it. And that probably sounds obvious when I say it out loud, but in my body it doesn't feel obvious at all. It feels like I'm always slightly behind myself, like I'm trying to catch up to the version of me that already made the plan. I bartend, I create cocktail meetings for bars and restaurants, I have a few features, and I'm even working on a cocktail recipe book. And I fucking love what I do. There's something about that that keeps me grounded in a way I didn't expect. It's immediate. People walk in, they order something, and even if they don't say much, you start to understand their mood anyway. Some people are celebrating, some people are just trying to get through the day. Some people are somewhere in between, not even fully aware of what they need yet. And I like that because it doesn't ask me to be ahead of myself. It just asks me to be there. But the moment I leave work, my mind goes somewhere else entirely. Money, bills, debt, planning, trying to figure out what stability even looks like when you're building it in real time. Debt for me isn't just numbers. It feels like a delay. Like something standing between me and the version of my life I keep trying to step into. It's not always loud, it doesn't scream at me every second, but it is there in the background almost every decision I make. Like a quiet filter running everything through. Like, can I afford this right now? Before I even realize I'm doing it, I'm doing it. And then I think about where I came from. I used to work in tech, and for a while I thought that it was going to be my long-term path. And I was good at it, like actually really good at it. Getting back in now feels complicated in a way I didn't expect. Not just because of the time away, but because the field itself has shifted so fast. Especially with AI. It's strange watching something you were once inside of evolve into something that feels slightly out of reach when you try to re-enter it. Like the language changed while you were still speaking the old version. Sometimes I think about applying again. Sometimes I think about starting over. Sometimes I think I've gone too long for it to make sense anymore. And I don't really know which thought is the honest one. So I bartend, I work, I build things in smaller ways now. I keep moving. And then sometimes out of nowhere, I catch myself imagining a completely different version of my life. The kind where things are just lighter. Not perfect. Just lighter. Like if I win five million dollars tomorrow, I already know what I would do. I wouldn't hesitate. I would pay everything off. All of it just gone. And then I just stop for a while. Just for a moment. Just long enough to breathe without having everything attached to it, having any cost attached to anything. And then I'd get on a plane. And I'd sleep next to my partner. And I'd wake up next to her. And then every day I'd wake up slower. I would eat slower. I would allow the world to feel a little less urgent for a moment. And I wouldn't stop dreaming. I think I'd just stop surviving long enough to actually feel what I've been building toward. Because somewhere along the way, constant motion became normal for me. That stillness almost feels like it's something I have to earn. And sometimes I sit with that and realize there's another layer to it. As if being black, queer, and trans America isn't already enough to hold it once. Being proud and still afraid of what pride costs. That's a real dilemma. Black and proud, queer and proud, trans and proud. All of it at the same time, in a country that already decided what I was before I even had the chance to define myself. Maybe another very real thing underneath all of this is that I don't actually want a perfect life. I just want a life that feels like it's responding to me. Not one I'm constantly trying to catch up to, not one I'm apologizing to, not one I'm fixing every day before I even get to live in it. One that's gentle and soft at times, but it still holds me accountable because I don't want to run away from responsibility. I actually like the feeling of doing the things that need to be done, the structure, the follow-through, the satisfaction of taking care of what's mine to take care of. But I also want to live. I want to have fun again. I want to do things that don't have outcomes attached to them. I want to laugh more than I calculate. I want to rest without feeling like I've earned it. And I think part of what I've been sitting with lately is that I've been carrying responsibilities that don't all start with me. Some of them are passed down, some of them were inherited, some of them belong to people who no longer hear. And that changes something. That doesn't erase responsibility, but it does redistribute it. It means it was never mine to live with entirely on my shoulders alone. It was meant to be shared, held differently, held and handled gently. Not as a burden that crushes anyone involved, but as something that gets tended to with care. And I think I'm learning how to let some of that go. Not in a disrespectful way or a dismissive way, but in a way that honors what it's been, and also honors what I can realistically hold without breaking myself in the process. Because holding it alone has been heavy. Heavier than I think I always admit it. So I'm trying to practice something that feels new for me. Release. Not abandonment, not avoidance, not escape. Just a very intentional, very respectful, very gentle release. Like setting something down carefully instead of dropping it and trusting that I don't have to be the only place everything lands anymore. Because if I'm honest, I think part of what makes that so difficult is that my mom always believed I could do this truly, without hesitation, without doubt. She believed I could survive hard things. She believed I could build a good life. She believed I could find my way. And somewhere in the back of my mind, there's still this feeling that she'd look at me and say, Baby, you've done harder things than this. And maybe that's the frustrating part. I don't question whether she believed in me. Not for a second. The person struggling to believe it now is me. She could she believed she believed I could do this without her. I'm still trying to convince myself. And maybe that's why I've been holding on so tightly, because I think what I really want underneath all of this is some ease. That's part of why this podcast matters to me so much. Not because I think I have all the answers clearly, but because this is one of the few places where I let myself be fully honest in real time. Not curated, not cleaned up, not after I've already figured out the meaning of everything. Just me trying to make sense of my life while I'm still inside of it. Some days I record these episodes and afterwards I sit and wonder if I've said too much, if I'm being too vulnerable, too emotional, too open. Then I remember how many times I needed to hear somebody else say the exact thing I was afraid to admit out loud. And maybe that's the point. Not perfection, not virality, not becoming some polished internet version of myself. Just honesty, connection, recognition. I don't need a million listeners. I mean, that would be nice, absolutely, but I mean I'm not above a little success. I'm not above wanting my work to reach people. But more than anything, I just want to know somebody is listening. Not a crowd, not numbers. Just someone. Someone hearing this while they clean their apartment or drive home from work or lay awake at three in the morning trying to quiet their own thoughts. Someone who hears me say all of this and says and like thinks out loud, oh, it's not just me. Because that feeling, that feeling can save people sometimes. Feeling understood, feeling seen, feeling less alone inside your own mind. And I think that's what I want this space to become. Not content, not performance, a space, a real one, especially going into Pride Month, because this year feels different for me. Not louder, not more performative, just more honest. I'm black, I'm queer, I'm trans. I'm proud of that. I'm finally learning that pride doesn't always look loud. Sometimes pride looks like surviving, sometimes it looks like softness, it looks like resting, it looks like continuing to exist in a world that made its mind up about you before you even got here. And still choosing yourself anyway, still becoming anyway, still loving anyway. I think about all the people who came before me, the people who fought for visibility, fought for language, for freedom, for safety, for joy, people who probably never got to imagine someone like me sitting in a quiet apartment in Brooklyn recording a podcast about their feelings into a microphone. And yet, because they existed, I get to exist this way too. That means something to me. So during Pride Month, I really want to try and bring more people into this space. Friends of creatives, other queer folks, other trans folks, people figuring out life in real time just like I am. Now I don't know what that's gonna look like yet. I'm serious. I don't I don't I don't know how I'm gonna schedule all. I don't know how consistent it'll be. I don't know if every person I ask is gonna say yes. But I want to try. I really do. There's something healing about hearing people speak honestly. And maybe somebody listening needs to hear voices like ours speaking openly, laughing, processing, existing without apology. Maybe I need that too. I think I do. And I guess that's where I am right now. Still grieving, still building, still healing, still planning, still worried sometimes. But I'm hopeful too. Learning how to hold all these truths at the same time without letting any single one of them consume me. Learning that resilience is beautiful, but maybe ease is beautiful too. Maybe softness is too. Maybe being held is too. And maybe there's nothing weak about admitting you don't want to carry everything alone anymore. Maybe that's the strongest thing I've said this whole episode. This is even if you're scared, I am still. Thank you for sitting with me for a while. Truly. If this episode resonated with you, or if something in it made you pause and think about your own life for a second, you can always reach out. Feel free to DM me at abstract underscore catalyst on Instagram, or email me at the number 7amkingsill at gmail.com. And as always, wherever you are right now, emotionally, financially, spiritually, physically, I hope you give yourself permission to be human there. Not perfect, not finished, not healed completely, just human. And if things feel heavy right now, I hope you remember that heavy things can still be carried gently. I'll talk to you next time.