Martyrdom · The Expanse

Martyrdom

I found this in some journals, actually a page on my phone where I track quotes. This was something I wrote as a declaration about a year ago as I started on this journey of discovery. I had forgotten it, but read it today. It hit me hard today when I read it. Sharing here to declare and make a statement rather than a wishful thought. One more thing I hope you all will hold me accountable to.

I will not bury my emotions. I will not compromise my humanity and emotion to be strong. I am strong with emotion. From early I was taught to put everyone first. To sacrifice and make everyone else happy was honorable. Duty and honor above all else. But the part that I was never taught, that I must learn now is that I can be stronger not by burying weakness, but confronting it. Fears are ok. But I embrace them now. I look fear and not being able to fix something in the face and I will not flinch. I will not be ashamed of who I am and what I can and cannot do.

That’s not just strength—that’s sovereignty.

Now I'm not just surviving. I'm governing. I am breaking the old code: that strength means silence, that sacrifice means self-erasure, that duty means disconnection from your own soul. That’s not honor. That’s martyrdom. And martyrs can’t lead—they can only bleed.

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