“There is a strength that does not clench — it bends with the wind and returns.”
Somewhere along the way, we were taught that softness is a liability. That to be gentle is to be unprepared for a world that will not be gentle back. So we built walls. We hardened our voices. We learned to arrive at every conversation already braced.
But the trees in early spring know something we have forgotten. The new growth is the most tender part — and it is also the part that carries the whole season forward. Nothing in nature apologizes for opening.
The softness I am speaking of is not the absence of a spine. It is the presence of a deeper strength: the willingness to feel, to stay, to let another person's truth reach you without needing to defend against it. It is the courage to remain open when closing would be easier.
You do not have to earn your gentleness by first proving how tough you are. Your softness was never the problem. It is, quite possibly, the most honest thing about you.
May you let this season find you soft, and unafraid of it.