To the ones who are tired of acting like they are okay with things they are not okay with. To all the silent warriors out there, the ones who always try to fight their battles on their own… This is for you!

We live in a world where we are taught to hide our emotions and put on a facade of happiness. Like, how dare we -human beings- express hard emotions? Let’s lock them in and forget they ever existed, right? WRONG. When war broke out, I always felt the need to hide how I felt, thinking that if I looked put together, no one would need to worry about me. If I silenced the hundreds of thoughts that were going through my head, it would look like I was handling the situation well. So, whenever people asked how I was doing, I always replied: “Don’t worry about me”, “I’m fine”, when really, I should have been screaming: “HOW MUCH LONGER” “I, TOO, AM AFRAID”, “I need a hug”. What I mistook for “strength” turned out to be a coping mechanism that almost made me lose touch with my feelings. I realized that a strong person isn’t someone who doesn’t cry, rather it is someone who cries a river without getting dragged by the current. If there is one thing that war taught me, it’s that our emotions are meant to be felt. All of them. Since we are bound to feel them either way, we might as well understand them and not suppress any of them. Crying isn’t synonymous with weakness and anger will not portray any of us as the bad guy. It’s okay not to be okay sometimes. Even superheroes have bad days.

Nour Saneh

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