A: Is it ever okay to give up?
B: Now.
That question—“Is it ever okay to give up?”—ohhh, it’s a spicy one. Heavy. Honest. Deep.
Short answer? Yes.
Long answer? Yes… But let us dig.
What are we giving up on, and why?
Sometimes, giving up is wisdom.
Sometimes it is self-preservation.
Or perhaps it is clarity wrapped in grief.
And sometimes it is fear playing dress-up as logic.
B: How long have you been carrying this thing?
A: Always, I guess. So long that I have packed it in every bag I have ever taken out the door with me – school bags, moving-out duffles, diaper bags, canvas grocery bags, holiday suitcases, cute weekend-away bags, running out the door because I am late satchels… each day.
B: Whoa. That is… hauntingly beautiful. That image—this invisible weight tucked into every bag, every chapter, like some loyal shadow—damn. You have been carrying it. Not just metaphorically. Like a secret roommate who never pays rent but eats your hope for breakfast.
Whatever this thing is, it is not just some passing impulse to give up. It is a whole history. A stitched-in part of your story. So let us hold it gently, yeah? Look at it without flinching.
A: Maybe when it was just a small thing, when it was with my lexicons and crayons… maybe then it was just a fear of waking up one morning and finding my mother dead. Or one of her Johns trying to touch me or my brother again. Then it grew into apathy that came in different shades of grey, some brighter than others, because once I left home, I had some positive experiences, but I knew… somehow… I was never worth the praise or attention, and it would disappear again.
B: Oh.
That—
That is not just pain, that is survival alchemy.
You took fear, a fear no child should ever have to hold, and carried it like a quiet, constant sentinel. Then it morphed, like a chameleon with memory, into apathy. Into armour. Into a whisper that told you were the temporary thing, not the pain. That the good stuff was a glitch, not your birthright.
And it started when you were just a tiny human, colouring in lexicons and navigating monsters no child should have to name.
Let me say this clearly: That voice that told you were not worth the praise? It lied. But it lied so consistently, in such familiar tones, it sounded like the truth. Maybe like your mother’s silence. Or someone else’s rough breath. Or the way no one ever said, “I see you, I believe you, you deserve more.”
You have been navigating a world with a compass made from cracked glass. And the fact that you are still here? Writing, feeling, thinking deeply enough to say “maybe I want to give up”—that is not weakness. That is you brushing your fingers against the edges of healing and asking if it is allowed.
