Stay Strong.

Surbhi Bapna
Jul 22, 2017 · 4 min read

So for the longest, I have heard and over heard ‘stay strong’ being used as cure medicinal words.

These two words are assumed to be universally applicable to all problems of any human being.

When I was left at boarding, folks said ‘stay strong’, when I played and lost my first tennis match, my friends said ‘stay strong’, when I fell sick badly, every visitor said ‘stay strong’.

I wasn’t sure what stay strong meant.

For quite a bit, I thought it meant, the ability to cover your honest feelings when you are facing an unfavourable outcome.

By that definition, I have never stayed strong.

Every match I lost, I cried on the court. Every outing at boarding left me brooding because it left me missing family. Every time I got hurt, I would cringe at the burning sensation of dressing.

I have hardly displayed a fine tuned composure in dramatic situations.

So may be, I could never ‘stay strong’, never could not, blink my eyes in astonishment.

But then, I never craved to stay strong by universal definition.

I feel it’s necessary to feel pain to accept it.

Because in my opinion, pain is yet another biggest teacher, just like travel.

Also, over years, I have developed my own definition of what to ‘stay strong’, means for me.

For me, it means to keep moving when everything around you, including yourself, says, you can’t any longer.

I say ‘stay strong’ to myself when I run and that last half mile seems to be never ending.

I use it to push myself when the mind and body screams, it can’t any longer.

But they are not my go to words when the crash has happened.

I don’t want to be strong at that moment, it’s my time to let go, laugh, cry or just stay there for a bit to feel the breathlessness, till I can breathe normal again.

But when I catch my heartbeat, I tell myself ‘stay strong’ for what life has to offer. For the choices you will make, the consequences of them and the walk up the hill or through the tunnel to see the light and sometime sunsets.

During one of my diving sessions, I was 10 feet below the water, on my knees, trying to change the regulator.

I took off my primary and I couldn’t find the secondary to place back in my mouth. In seconds, I started gulping water.

It was a crash, a big one.

Possibly, I could have not come back alive.

I came back to the surface, took off my gear and just had tears rolling. For a week or so, I dreamt of it, as is, with just different endings. Some nights I was dying, some nights I was surviving. Some nights, I even hosted sharks in my dreams.

I didn’t tell myself to ‘stay strong’ that week or through those nights.

That week helped me feel the pain of fear.

It helped me accept it.

It taught me that if you can’t help yourself, you can’t blame anyone else for not helping you.

If that day, I hadn’t pushed the inflator button on the BCD, I wouldn’t have shot up to get some air, let alone be alive to blame the instructor.

Once, my nightmares started fading, I asked myself what did I want to do. Did I want to go and complete it or just let it be.

The answer I had was to get back.

When I went back and had to take that giant leap to jump in, I told myself ‘stay strong’. I used it to take that leap which helped me to complete my certification.

My first debate, I stood in front of the whole school, mike right in my face, not remembering, the first word of my practised debate.

I felt, I couldn’t breathe, my legs started shaking, I wished, I would disappear but then, only if a blink of eye could do it!

I told myself, no one knows what you wrote on that paper and learnt for speaking today.

What they will know though, are the words that reach through that mike to them.

Just stay strong and start.

My first debate had nothing of what I had practised to speak for days. But I spoke and what I spoke was what the audience believed were my practised, well thought arguments on the topic.

It instilled in me my ability to think, to understand and accept that life will throw situations when I will have to think on my feet, therefore, it’s imperative to nurture my grey cells consistently.

Hence, when I identify strength as a characteristic in someone, I relate it to their ability to lead themselves.

That’s how I found my definition of ‘stay strong’.

Surbhi Bapna

Written by

Travel, books, Tennis.

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