What it takes to be strong

Lately, I have been wondering where strength comes from.
What does it take to be strong? Strong enough to face the world? Life requires strength each moment it continues, I do not ever dare to forget that for a second.

My witch laughs about me, sitting by the window wearing nothing but a night dress while eating chocolate. “Let me have this moment”, she hisses at me. “I don’t have to respond to a ridiculous amount of E-Mails tomorrow!”

Maybe the amount isn’t even that ridiculous, but the way my stomach cramps makes it grow over my head?
“It’s just one of these things you sometimes have to do in life”, I tell my witch and bury myself deeper in blankets and pillows to not let the cold touch me.

Sometimes, you’ll have to open up a letter that cannot mean good.
Sometimes, you’ll have to breathe through the pain, knowing that you’ll be better afterwards.

It always amazes me that we just keep going. Humans keep doing this, instead of collectively deciding to stop. Deciding that it’s just not worth it and takes too much effort. Deciding that we can’t be sure. We haven’t really done that. Where does this decision come from?

How do I know that breathing through the pain means that I will be better? How can I be sure that the pain won’t last?

My witch sighs, her fingers looking suspiciously blue from the cold. “Don’t you remember moments when someone would stroke your hair and tell you that you’ll be alright?”
I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but maybe I do? Because no, I don’t. I don’t remember many of these moments.
“When all that you do just mirrors in their eyes, and you know it is worth it. However uncomfortable, however unbearable.”

Keeping the mouth open at the dentist, opening the first ever letter from the bank, being convinced that you’re not gonna die today – sometimes you just have to do these things in life.

“It is worth it, because it does not happen unseen in the dark”, my witch continues to describe these moments I do not remember much of, because I discovered them late in life. But then again, I at least discovered them that much that I know what my witch is talking about. That is something right?
“That’s what all the awkward moments of sitting by the window and leaking out are for”, my witch giggles.

To finally be seen. By the right person, in the right moment. That’s where the strength to life and die comes from, I think.
I should probably get dressed. And I hope my witch will be picked up and kissed soon.