She'll Be Fine

That phrase haunted me for years. As if my discomfort didn't count. As if my peace was disposable. Eventually, I stopped being fine with it.

For most of my life, I handed out respect like party favors. To classmates who didn’t deserve it. To teachers who didn’t notice. To family who wouldn’t return it. I stayed quiet. I worked hard. I learned early that being liked meant being small, and for years, I perfected the art of being overlooked.

At some point—I’m not even sure when—I realized this: If I don’t give myself love and respect first, no one else is going to do it for me.

I replay certain moments like broken cassette loops. Things I wish I had said. Scenes I should have handled differently. In my head, I always find the words. The confrontation is sharp, controlled. I speak with precision, with power. The other person is stunned—not by cruelty, but by my clarity.

“You don’t understand what this feels like.”

“Please, just listen. I’m not asking you to fix anything. Just hear me.”

“My feelings are real. I’m not being dramatic—I’m being honest.”

“Don’t mock me.”

But even in these imagined scenarios, I notice something: I’m not focused on how it would feel to finally speak my truth. I’m still thinking about how they would respond. Would I make them uncomfortable? Would I be dismissed? Would I regret it?

Even in my fantasy, I center them before I center me.

The Dance

I was 13, maybe 14. Middle school dance. Dim lights, loud music, and an unspoken understanding of who belonged and who didn’t. I’d never been a group girl. I had one or two close friends. I floated on the edges.

At some point during the night, I said something careless about a girl named Lisa. I don’t even remember what. It made its way back to her.

She walked right up to me, in front of others, and called me out. Calm. Clear. Unshaken. She didn’t yell. She didn’t insult me. She just said what needed to be said.

And I? I stood there frozen. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t defend myself. Didn’t say anything.

I was embarrassed, yes. But more than that, I was in awe.

Lisa had something I didn’t yet have: the right to take up space with her voice.

This moment stayed with me—not because of my silence, but because I witnessed what voice looked like. Clear. Unapologetic. Unshaken.

I didn’t have that yet. But I was learning to recognize it. That awareness—that first seed—would eventually grow into the person who could finally speak.

The Cereal Box

Later that year, another moment. I had fallen asleep with the radio on—I always needed something on at night. The quiet felt too big.

Sometime in the night, my sister unplugged it. I heard her whisper to someone, “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.”

That phrase. “She’ll be fine.” As if my discomfort didn’t count. As if my peace was disposable.

I woke up furious.

This time, I told myself, I wouldn’t stay silent. I’d make it clear I wasn’t okay with being dismissed.

At breakfast, everyone was already seated. My mom asked me something—I don’t remember what—but I exploded. No preamble. No build-up. Just rage.

“I was using that! You had no right!”

I slammed the cereal box on the counter. It burst open. Cereal flew everywhere. And my family? They laughed.

I laughed too—reflexively, awkwardly. I couldn’t tell if they were laughing at the mess or at me. The result was the same: I felt small again.

Later, as I got ready upstairs, the laughter had stopped. My sister and her friends were quiet. Maybe I made a sound loud enough to be heard. Maybe something landed.

But I didn’t feel powerful. I felt stupid for trying.

Yet somewhere in my heart, I knew something had shifted. My voice wouldn’t always be clean or perfect. Sometimes it would be loud and chaotic. Sometimes people would laugh. But at least I was trying—and that mattered more than their reaction.

The Studio

My first job out of college was at a TV station in New Hampshire. I worked hard. Earned a title: Studio Coordinator. But titles only carry as much weight as people are willing to give them. And in this case, mine was feather-light.

There was a clique in the production department that dictated the tone of everything. When I sent out a request about studio organization, one of the audio engineers responded with an email:

WAAAAHHHHHH.

All caps. A digital baby cry.

I stared at the screen, unsure how to respond. Do I laugh? Ignore it? Call it out? I chose silence—not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t yet know what response would protect me.

Right before going on air, the same engineer cracked open the glass door and said, “I didn’t write that.” No context. No apology. Just the assumption that I would understand.

I didn’t report it. I didn’t confront him. I let it go.

But something was different this time. I wasn’t internalizing his dismissal as evidence of my inadequacy. I was recognizing it for what it was: his choice to be unprofessional. His choice to mock instead of communicate.

I was learning to separate other people’s behavior from my worth. Their lack of respect didn’t mean I was asking for too much. It meant they were offering too little.

Kenya

It wasn’t until my 30s, serving in the Peace Corps in Kenya, that I started to hear something different.

We were on a group safari in Kenya and Tanzania when the country director—who had barely spoken to me the entire time I’d been in service—turned to me and said, “I’m surprised you’re handling this trip so well.”

The sentence landed like an insult dressed up as surprise.

Why wouldn’t I be handling it well? What about me suggested otherwise?

Maybe it was the quiet. Maybe it was the way I kept to myself. Maybe it was just his own projection. But here was a man who hadn’t once asked about my life in the village—where I bathed from a bucket, washed clothes by hand, squatted to use the toilet, and rode public transport shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, their sweat and elbows pressed into me. If I could survive all that, I could handle a four-day safari.

His comment made one thing clear: I had been underestimated. Again.

But this time, I didn’t internalize it. This time, I took it as proof of what I already knew—that I could do hard things. That I had done hard things. That I would finish what I started, not for his approval, but for mine.

Ironically, the volunteers who were most praised early on ended up quitting before their service was done. I stayed. Quietly. Resiliently. And unlike my earlier self, who feared standing out, I came to embrace my quiet strength as its own form of power.

This was when everything changed. I stopped measuring myself against other people’s expectations. I started trusting my own assessment of what I could handle.

The Shift

The less I cared about being seen a certain way, the more I started seeing myself clearly.

The more I spoke—even when my voice was shaking—the more grounded I became in who I was.

And here’s what I know now: Choosing to remain quiet in a moment of frustration isn’t weakness. It’s strategy. It’s recognizing that not every battle requires my voice, but every boundary does.

I’ve learned to stop giving my power away to others just because they’re voicing their feelings about my actions. Being aware of others doesn’t mean I don’t care—it means I’ve accepted I can’t change people or make them do things. That’s on them.

And now, more than ever, that is the voice I’m listening to.

Love and respect aren’t just given. They’re cultivated, nurtured, and most importantly, claimed by the one who owns them.

Me.