The Quest for Visibility

The Music of Ruin & The Great Resignation

The final, paralyzing irony of the Bearing Wall is that I am anchored here by the exhausting labor of keeping my own painful truths hidden from the people who might actually save me from the fall. I’ve become the woman who writes poems about secrets rather than speaking them—the guide who is currently, ironically, lost in her own woods.

Let’s be clear: I don’t have a solution. I just know I’m done drinking my own deceit. The ‘music of ruin’ is soft and familiar, but it’s time to change the station. The terrifying question isn’t ‘Who will hold the wall if I leave?’ It’s ‘What happens to the woman underneath if I stay?’

How do we—the women who mold ourselves into every shape needed to keep the peace—begin the treacherous work of laying down our secrets? How do we demand to be seen, not for the five-star service we provide, but for the fierce, fragile, and slightly unhinged beings we actually are?

This is the beginning of finding out. If you recognize the weight of being the Bearing Wall—the heavy cost of being the ‘magician’ everyone takes for granted—thank you for sitting in this vulnerable truth with me. Let’s figure out how to demand the support we’ve been subsidizing for everyone else. Let’s do it together.

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