08/28/2026
Perfection from Rebecca Dupas. A snippet of her poem “Tough Cookie"
Women are carrying so much of the mental load, the burden of niceness, and the expectation of nurturing without expecting reciprocity. No wonder we grow tough.
It takes work to find softness. It takes setting expectations for how we should be treated, finding safe places to land with vulnerability, and self-compassion for the little part of us that might never be fully soft.