Day 40: Home sick and musing on strength

I stayed home sick today for the first time in months. It was very strange to be doing so. I spent most of my day indoors, except for the fifteen minutes I went outside to get some fresh air. I slept a lot, and talked to my cousin, who thinks I have been half assing my blogs lately. He is not wrong. I have been preoccupied lately, doing and thinking of other things... I will try a little bit harder... starting today.

Being home sick means no interesting pictures of the outside world. Instead, you're going to get a picture of some random object in my room. I have been thinking about writing this entry for a while, and figure now must be a good a time as any...

So I have this ring made of tungsten carbide...




Tungsten Carbide. For those not familiar with it, I furnish you with what wikipedia has told me about it:

Tungsten carbide, WC is an inorganic chemical compound containing equal parts of tungsten and carbon atoms. Colloquially, tungsten carbide is often simply called carbide. In its most basic form, it is a fine gray powder, but it can be pressed and formed into shapes for use in industrial machinery, tools, abrasives, as well as jewelry. Tungsten carbide is approximately three times stiffer than steel, with a Young's modulus of approximately 550 GPa,^[1] and is much denser than steel or titanium. Tungsten carbide can now be found in the inventory of some jewelers. When used in this application the bands appear with a lustrous dark hue often buffed to a mirror finish. The color is more similar to that of hematite than to that of platinum. The finish is highly resistant to scratches and scuffs, holding its mirror-like shine for years. Although it is possible to inlay precious metals, woods, and other materials, these are less scratch-resistant than tungsten carbide. It cannot easily be melted, with a melting point of 2870 °C, 5198 °F, and a boiling point of 6000°C, 10832 °F.

Like the One Ring created by the Dark Lord Sauron, it is a ring of strength that cannot easily be broken or destroyed. (*Sidenote: Don't you think Frodo could have thrown the Ring into a volcano, ANY volcano and it would have worked? No one would have dived in after it and survived... Guess if he had, there wouldn't be the trilogy...)

Anyway. This ring and its properties kind of remind me of strength. I've been struggling with the concept for a while, and I've been thinking... the idea of strength intrigues me… I think mostly because it is completely different from what I thought it was. I used to think being strong was throwing out everything that had to do with the person who hurt you; being “tough” and acting like nothing was gonna hurt you; being angry because it keeps you from falling apart. But while anger can fuel you, it’s a very thin line to be walking on because it can burn more energy and turn you into someone you may not want to be. In that sense, the situation becomes even sadder because you not only lost someone you loved, but you lost yourself in the process.

I’m starting to think that my version of strength was being able to pick myself up despite the hurt, to let myself experience the pain, to keep that pain from damaging the best parts of me, and to grow from it all. It also takes a lot of strength to keep caring when I have no reason to… and to be true to what I feel is right despite what other people are telling me. And it DEFINITELY takes a lot of strength to still want good things for a person who has caused me pain...

To be strong doesn't necessarily mean that you've never been broken; maybe it means that you're able to start putting the pieces of yourself back together...