THE MAGAZINE · THE ĖDITURE

Some Days, No One Knows How Hard It Is to Get Up

On the hard days no one sees, and what digging deep really means to her.

By Cordelia Garza

There's a part of my life you don't know. And that's okay. I've shared so much over the years. My daughters, my travels, my projects, what I cook, what I wear, my homes, my books, the things that excite me and some of the things that have hurt. But there are other things I haven't shared.

There are things I've lived behind closed doors that I'll probably never tell. Moments when I've felt emotionally destroyed. Just like that. Destroyed. And the next day, I got up.

I showered, I got ready, I drove my daughters wherever they needed to go, I answered messages, I worked, I made a recipe, I filmed content, I sat through a meeting, I smiled. And no one had any reason to know that inside I was trying to pick up my own pieces. I think a lot of us women are far too good at that.

You can be going through one of the hardest emotional moments of your life and at eight in the morning someone asks you, “What's for lunch?” HA. Excuse me. Can't you see I'm in the middle of an existential crisis? No. And on top of that, they're hungry.

When you're a mom, a wife, a daughter, a friend, when you work and there are people who depend on you, you find out the world has this rather rude habit of spinning on even when you'd like to step off for a minute. And then you do something you didn't even know you could do. You function.

Not because you're made of stone. Not because it doesn't hurt. And definitely not because you're that “strong woman” who can handle anything. You function because there are moments when there's nothing left to do but dig deep.

I've made content with a broken heart, too. And I'm not saying it so anyone will think, “Wow, she's so strong.” I'm saying it because I think on social media we see a tiny fraction of other people's lives and fill in the rest of the story in our heads.

A woman goes out looking put together and we think she's doing great. She posts a photo from a trip and we think her life is perfect. She's working, creating, exercising, going out to dinner, and we assume everything is fine. Not necessarily. I've had beautiful days on social media that were incredibly hard days in my real life.

I've sat across from people talking about work while inside I wanted to cry. I've had to be a mom when I needed someone to take care of me. I've created things while doubting absolutely everything. I've smiled in photos during stretches when my heart was living something completely different. And that smile wasn't a lie. The smile was true, too. It just wasn't the whole truth. Because a life can hold pain and beauty at the same time.

I'm not going to tell everything that has happened to me. Maybe before I felt that because I share my life, I had to explain a lot of things. Not anymore. There are stories that belong to me. There are stories that involve people I love. There are things I'm still making sense of. And there are hurts that don't need to become content to have been real. But I can talk about what they left in me.

You think that because something knocked you down, you'll never be yourself again. And maybe you won't. Maybe you'll never be exactly the same. But that's not necessarily a tragedy.

I also want to say something we rarely say when we tell these stories afterward: there were days when I wasn't brave. Because once it's all over, it's very easy to say, “I fell and I got back up.” Perfect for a coffee mug. The reality was far less elegant.

There were days I cried. Days I didn't understand anything. Days I was afraid. Days I felt alone. Days I wondered how I was going to manage. And days when my great act of courage was simply getting out of bed and doing the next thing in front of me. Nothing heroic. One foot. Then the other. And then another day.

With time I understood something that seems so important to me now: being strong doesn't always feel like being strong. Sometimes it feels awful.

Sometimes being strong is crying while you do your makeup. Sometimes it's sitting in the car for five minutes before you walk in somewhere, breathing and saying, “Okay. Let's go.” Sometimes it's working without feeling inspired. Sometimes it's not sending that text. Sometimes it's asking for help. Sometimes it's praying. And sometimes it's getting home at nine at night, kicking off your shoes and thinking, “I don't know how, but I got through the day.”

I'm not strong every day. And I don't want to be. I'm tired of this idea that women have to be able to handle everything. No. There are things I can't handle. There are moments when I need my friends, my family, God, therapy, silence, a walk, sleep, or to cry until it eases a little.

Digging deep doesn't mean not needing anyone. To me it means something else. It means not abandoning myself. Even when I'm sad. Even when I'm scared. Even when someone has let me down. Even when something I thought was certain stops being certain. Even when my life in that moment looks nothing at all like what I had imagined. Not abandoning myself.

And over the years I understood that many of the things I'm proudest of aren't the ones people can see. It's not the books. It's not the projects. It's not the trips. It's not even the times something turned out amazing. It's all those mornings no one saw. Those days when I had every reason to shut down and decided to do one more thing. And then another. And then another. Until one day I looked back and realized how far I'd come. Not because I never broke. But because I learned that breaking didn't mean I was finished.

So if there's a woman reading this today from her bed, from a bathroom where she slipped in to cry for five minutes, from her car before walking into work, or sitting next to someone who has no idea what she's feeling, I want to tell her something I've needed to hear, too:

You don't have to fix your life today. You don't have to prove to anyone that you're strong. You don't have to be positive. And you don't have to find “the lesson” in what you're going through right now, either. Do the next thing. That's all. Take a shower. Eat something. Answer what's urgent. Hug your kids. Do your work if you can. Ask for help if you need it, from someone you trust or from a professional. Pray if that holds you up. Cry if you need to cry. And we'll see about tomorrow.

Because maybe digging deep isn't getting up as if nothing happened. Maybe it's getting up knowing exactly what happened. With your heart still aching. With fear. With doubts. With dark circles under your eyes. But getting up. I've done it more times than you know. And you probably have, too.

That's an extraordinary life, too.

— Corde