Carrying it By Yourself

We recently watched season 1 of “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” For those who haven’t seen it, you may want to stop reading if you plan to watch it.

There is a scene where Belly (15 years old) is crying in her bed while her mom holds her. She has just learned the news that Susannah, her mom’s best friend, has an aggressive cancer that has returned. As she processes this, she asks her mom how long she has know. Her mom replies, “Since the spring.” It’s nearing the end of the summer at this point, so her mom as known for some time now. Susannah really wanted all of the kids, her own boys, along with Belly and Steven to have a normal, happy summer even just one last time. So, her mom, Laurel, kept the news to herself.

Belly is overcome by emotion as she says, “But you carried it all by yourself.”

I had already been overcome by emotion watching all of the kids process this horrific news, but that one line broke me. When Belly says it, it breaks Laurel too. It’s like in that moment she didn’t have to be strong anymore. Only then could she process how heavy it was to carry it all alone.

Many of us are carrying it all by ourselves. Whatever it may be.

Some of us don’t want others to know what we are carrying…as if somehow talking about it makes it more real and more heavy.

Some of us need to compartmentalize the hard parts of our lives. We lean our daily routines because we don’t know how else to make it through each day.

Others didn’t grow up with models who practiced vulnerability and demonstrated how to lean on others.

Some of us are afraid of the soft, painful parts of our hearts because we know at any moment we might break into a million pieces.

Whatever it might be, we are all carrying something heavy. And many of us are carrying it by ourselves.

We will likely never really know what is going on with other people.

So, let’s go ahead and approach people with more kindness and compassion than necessary.

As the saying goes, just because people carry it well, does not mean it’s not heavy.