Birgit | The Unwritten.Essays

What's uncomfortable about admiring someone who always manages?

“She'll figure it out. We don't have to worry about her.”
My mother used to say that about me. Often. And with affection.
For a long time, I thought I knew what she meant.
It's taken me considerably longer to wonder what everyone else heard.

Almost a year ago, I wrote an essay about resilience. Recently, someone pinned it to our tour crew board, which is a mildly inconvenient place to discover that your own writing hasn't quite caught up with you. So, tired as I am, I went back and rewrote it. Because after all these years of sitting with people who have become exceptionally good at managing, there is one thing about our admiration for resilience that still bothers me.

And it isn't resilience itself.

The new version of Resilience: The Prettiest Word for Abandonment is now on Substack.

If you've spent much of your life being the person nobody had to worry about, I think you'll find something worth sitting with here.

There’s a link in my bio for you to find my substack. I leave the link to this essay in the comments.
Just look for this 🟠.

Anyway… the kettle's on. Even somewhere between cities. ☕️
B.