The Weight That Doesn’t Let You Break

There’s a kind of exhaustion that doesn’t look like crying.
It doesn’t scream or collapse or shout for help.

It’s quiet.
Functioning.
Still answering emails.
Still cooking dinner.
Still nodding and smiling when someone says,
"How are you doing?"

"I’m fine."

Not because you are.
But because you’ve been not fine for so long that it became your normal.
Because if you ever truly stopped—laid the weight down—
you’re afraid it wouldn’t just fall.
You would.

That’s the thing people don’t understand about this kind of burden.
It’s not just heavy—
it’s woven into you.

You’re not holding it in your arms.
You are it.
You carry it through your spine,
your breath,
your smile.

And worse—
it doesn’t even feel safe to put it down.

Because the world around you?
It’s not a place of soft landings.
It’s a bed of thorns.

Laying the weight down means laying yourself down—
and risking being pierced in every tender place
you’ve fought so hard to protect.

So you keep carrying.

Not because you’re a martyr.
Not because you’re invincible.
But because breaking feels like a luxury you can’t afford.

Because someone you love is in pain.
Because someone depends on your strength.
Because you’ve already been failed too many times
by those who were supposed to catch you.

And so you endure.

Hollowed out.
A soul that doesn’t sparkle right now.
A heart too tired to reach for hope.
But still—
you endure.

That’s where Elyndra came from.
Not a villain.
Not a savior.
Just a woman carved from centuries of silence.

A woman who stopped showing her pain
because the world didn’t reward vulnerability—
it punished it.

Every measured move.
Every cold glance.
Every choice that looked sharp from the outside—
was born from the same place:

The unbearable burden
of carrying what no one else would.

She wasn’t cruel. She was exhausted.
She wasn’t manipulative. She was surviving.
She wasn’t heartless. She was protecting
the last flicker of something too precious to risk.

She didn’t lead because she wanted power.
She led because someone had to remember
what they were before the world twisted them
into something unrecognizable.

So she bore the weight.
Even when it crushed her.
Even when it meant hiding the softest parts of herself
beneath iron.

Not because she was strong.
But because she had no permission to fall.

Just like you.

If this is you—
Please know this:

You are not weak.
You are not broken.
And even if you can’t feel your light—
you are still carrying it.

You are allowed to pause.
To cry.
To let someone see the truth behind your “I’m fine.”

And if no one else will hold that truth for you—
let these words do it.

You are not alone.
You are seen.

Even from afar,
there is someone willing to sit with you—
in this beautiful, brutal mess called life.

And one day,
when the world becomes softer—
or when you finally decide
to rise from the thorns and burn it all down—

You will remember:

You were never meant to carry it all alone.

—C.S. Evermore