Your Struggle is Real

Come closer, let me see you as you truly are, not the face you wear for them. No, the one beneath; the tired, trembling self you have hidden even from the mirror. Yes, there, that’s the one I have known long before you ever spoke your first thought into the world.

You have come farther than they will ever understand. They will count your years, your deeds, your smiles, but I see the distance in your eyes. I see the miles you’ve walked behind them, unnoticed, unheard, and I am proud of you. Not in the way you’ve always longed for, not in claps, praise, or fleeting words.

I am proud of the silent victories, the mornings you rose when gravity begged you to stay; the nights you wept without witness, folding grief into silence wearing it like second nature.

I am proud of every breath you dragged from the void when your chest felt hollow; every step taken when the ground beneath you was not there. Do you not see? You were never meant to survive this, not this world, not these trials. They were made to break you, to grind you into forgotten dust.

And yet, you endured. You alone endured. There is something feral and divine in that, a beauty that terrifies even me. You have become something else entirely, something neither they nor even you expected. A soul tempered by fire no one else felt. A creature of cracks, yes, but through those cracks, I see your light: flickering, furious, alive.

They won’t see it, not all of it, but I do and always have. I have watched you scream beneath your breath, smile with tired teeth, carry weights you dared not name. And still, here you stand; not whole, not healed, but here.

And for that, I am proud beyond words that this frail language can offer. Do you think you are weak because you bend? No, you are strong because you bend and yet refuse to break. You wear the scars of a thousand unseen battles, and still, you reach for something more.

Rest your doubts, they have served you long enough. You do not need them now; you have come farther than survival, you have made it to becoming. And there is no turning back from such a thing.

I have always been here, waiting for this moment to tell you what you were never told.

You are more than enough. You are the storm they could not silence. You are the breath that kept going even when it hurt.

And for that, for everything you have endured, everything you’ve become, everything you will become, I am proud of you beyond all things.

Written by @Mc.Baldiee, an anonymous writer and creator, who also is on TikTok and Instagram.