There are so many kinds of bravery in this world, my Mother said. The ones where you feel like a small ship sailing through the stormy ocean waves, and the ones where you dry your tears and keep charging ahead even when your knees give out. There are those kinds of bravery where you sacrifice your own self and the ones you love for something much bigger, and those where you decide to live with endless regrets and guilt just for the sake of a single important moment. There are those, too, where you almost give all your life, all the strength you have just to be a little less hopeless, just to have a simple but comfortable life.

But there is another kind of bravery, too. The kind that asks you to take a step back and breathe when everything gets too heavy. The kind that pats your head when you fall down and tells you that it is okay to be home again. The kind that only reminds you of being tender to yourself, of knowing that bravery doesn't always mean going on even when it hurts. Sometimes, it means knowing when to stop and accepting that it's okay to give up and take your time rather than blindly losing everything running ahead.

I hope you don't always mistake resilience for bravery. I hope you treat yourself as someone important, too.