Soft Armour

I want to tell you something my mother never said but somehow taught me: there is strength in showing your tender places.

We spend so much time learning to be impenetrable. But what if? And this is not a radical thought, just a quiet one. What if our scars were meant to be visible?

Not displayed, mind you. Not worn like badges of honour or wounds held up for sympathy. But simply acknowledged. The way we might mention, in passing, that we have brown eyes or prefer tea to coffee.

The relief comes not from being bulletproof, but from laying down the heavy armour we never needed to carry. This is what I wish someone had told me earlier: your soft places are not weaknesses to be hidden. They are the spaces where love enters, where connection begins, where your truest self lives. Tend them gently. They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.

-DandelionPrecious from MANI