Still

You can feel it in the air when someone has been through their own storms

and still chooses to stay soft.

Like, really soft. Still kind. Still open. Still gentle, even when it would be easier to shut down, to build walls, to stop letting people in.

It’s not something you see every day.

Most people harden after everything they’ve been through.

They let their pain be their shield

or make them stop trusting,

or make them forget how to care.

But some people… they just don’t.

They carry their pain quietly,

they carry their history quietly,

and somehow they keep letting themselves care anyway.

They’re careful, yeah, but they still show up.

They still laugh, still notice the little things,

still let the world touch them instead of shutting it out.

Still, still, still…

they stay soft.

And you can feel it,

like it’s a light or a warmth that fills the space around them.

It’s in the way they move,

the way they talk,

the way they notice things you wouldn’t even think anyone noticed.

It makes you realize softness isn’t weakness.

It takes strength to stay open after everything,

to keep giving a little bit of yourself

even when you know the world might not always be kind in return.

And the thing is, it changes you.

Just being around someone like that makes you want to be better,

or at least kinder,

or at least more careful with your own heart,

so you don’t break the soft people who choose to stay that way.

There’s bravery in softness.

There’s courage in patience.

There’s quiet magic in staying gentle

even when life has tried over and over to harden you.

-dmnd