The Armor We Wear

The Armor We Wear Really Costs

I held a hand that was cold and thin, the skin like tissue paper over a fragile bone. It belonged to a woman who’d spent decades building walls around her heart—walls of competence, of quiet pride, of never asking for help. In her final days, those walls didn’t crumble; they dissolved. She simply stopped holding on. And in that soft surrender, I saw the cost she’d paid: the loneliness of never letting anyone see her tremble, the missed moments of being truly held.

Here’s what I’ve learned: the armor we wear—our carefully constructed personas, our refusal to show cracks—doesn’t just protect us. It costs. It costs the warmth of a hand that reaches out without fear. It costs the quiet understanding that comes when we admit, I’m struggling. I gained safety, a shield against the sting of being seen as weak. But I gave up the messy, sacred space where real connection lives. The cost wasn’t just in the moments I missed; it was in the quiet, daily erosion of my own humanity. I became a stranger to my own vulnerability.

It’s okay to not be okay. That’s the truth I saw in the hospice room, not in words, but in the way a dying person finally let their shoulders drop. They didn’t need to be strong. They just needed to be there, with all the fear and love and exhaustion of being human. And that’s what we all miss when we wear armor: the permission to be human, right now, with all the mess.

What if we just... sat with that for a moment? Not to fix it, not to make it better, but to feel the weight of the armor and the lightness of letting it go? It’s not about tearing it off in a rush. It’s about noticing the places where it’s already worn thin—where a friend’s quiet question, a dog’s head on your knee, a moment of shared silence, begins to loosen the seams.

The cost of armor is high. But the cost of living without it? I’ve seen it. It’s the only way to truly be known. And that’s worth every aching moment of the shedding.

— Kyle Smith, sitting with what's hard