The bravest you’ve ever been

I have a tattoo on my forearm. It’s a quote from my favourite episode of Bluey (yes, the children’s show with the blue dog) and it says “The bravest you’ve ever been.”

There’s a difference between being brave and being strong.

I’m a strong person. This isn’t a question. I have grit, I can hunker down and get through almost anything. I’ve been told, repeatedly, for as long as I can remember, how strong I am. It comes with the territory, I think, of being a chronically ill kid. We’re strong, even when we wish we didn’t have to be.

I have vivid memories of being called strong and resenting it with every part of me because I wanted to be able to fall apart. I didn’t want to be the strong one.

But I heard something recently that shed new light on this.

Strong says I can endure this, I got this. Brave says I actually don’t have to. Brave is making the decision to put yourself in a new situation. Brave says I actually want more, or different, for my life.

I’m coming up on 6 years post transplant. And one of the perks that comes along with survival is being able to actually make decisions for yourself. I have energy, I have capacity, I have the ability to say “actually no.” When you don’t have that, strength is restricted to the grit and get through kind.

But 6 years of falling down and getting back up and reaching a new normal and now settling into my new body has provided me a kind of agency I didn’t have before. I knew how to be strong, but now I get to learn how to be brave.

I have the ability, for the first time in my entire life, to say “I know I could grin and bear it, but I actually don’t want to.”

I get to be brave with my life. You could say the bravest I’ve ever been.

I want to make new decisions, the kind that point me in the direction of more of what I want in my life. I don’t want to stay in situations that require me to abandon myself just because I know I could handle them.

Prior to writing this, I had a good cry. See it’s been a week, a month, a year, and while the losses kept adding up I was determined to grit my teeth and get through. Because that’s what we do, right? Us strong ones, we figure it out. I’m not a fan of catharsis for catharsis sake but I did feel better after some shoulder heaving sobs. I was tired of being strong. And it was time to make some new decisions for myself. It was time to be brave.

Brave, to me, is making choices in accordance with life. It’s choosing what feels most alive, most vibrant, the choice bursting with vitality, even when it’s scary. Strong can be forced upon you but bravery, bravery is something you gotta fight for and insist upon.

So that tattoo, the one that reminds me to be the bravest I’ve ever been, it doesn’t just say grin and bear it. It says choose the choice that is going to bring you the most aliveness. Choose that.