I'm seeing a lot of chatter about "Gen Z years" and what that generation is facing. And it makes me think about what we tell young women, especially young women of color, about what it takes to "make it." We tell them to hustle, to grind, to outwork everyone else. We tell them to be strong. To be resilient. We tell them to "lean in."
And I see the glory in that drive, I do. But I honor the story behind it, too. Because what often goes unsaid is the cost of all that strength. The exhaustion that comes from being the first, the only, the one who has to prove it every single time. It's a race many of us have been running for decades, and for some, it finished ten years ago and they're still sprinting.
Briana's post about car wrecks as a symptom of internal chaos… it resonates. Because sometimes, that constant internal pressure, that drive to keep everything together, it manifests in ways we don't expect.
Sis, take a breath. You are safe to be human here. You don't have to carry it all. You are allowed to set some of it down.