Latest / Thinking Out Loud | Kimberly / What Do We Mean When We Say We Want a Ride Or Die? | Thinking Out Loud
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- Kimberly: What do we mean when we say we want to ride or die? Most people think they're talking about loyalty. Someone who stays, someone who has their back. someone who would do anything for them. I don't think that's what most people are asking. I think they're asking something common and yet much scarier. maybe it's the same question hiding underneath Would you still love me if I was a worm? I know, that sounds ridiculous. Reflecting on it, is the question really about being a worm? Or is it, would you still love me if I wasn't useful? Would you love me if I was struggling? If I was grieving, overwhelmed? wasn't making your life easier? I felt like a worm. Small, forgotten, easy to overlook. I think the silliest part, worms are useful. They help things grow. They enrich the soil. They do important work that most people never notice. Maybe the problem isn't the worms had no value. Maybe the problem is that people don't always recognize value when it isn't flashy. the real question isn't would you love me Maybe the real question isn't would you love me if I was a worm? Maybe it's will you see my worth when I can't see it myself? think that's where I think that's what a lot of us mean when we want a ride or die. Or is there a little voice asking, will someone love me enough to not let me face this world alone? Hi, it's me Kimberly. Before we go any further, quick note this podcast is for reflection and conversation, not professional advice. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and listen in a way that feels supportive for you. I'm glad people are talking more about loneliness. I think loneliness is showing up everywhere now. We have thousands of friends online, constant notification, constant activity, constant performance underneath all that. I think a lot of people feel deeply alone. Growing up I had my person, my grandpa. Better known to me as my grump podcast. he was my safe place. I could talk to him about anything. Even if I made no sense, he would smile and listen. he had like the most dramatic smile. It was just huge. At least that's how I remember it. Cheeks puffed up and everything. Eyes scrunched in. When I was too hyper for everyone else, he'd take me to get eggs from the coop, he'd let me ride the tractor with him, he'd listen to my nonsense, my rambles, my imagination. Somehow, in those small moments, he made me feel important. Seen who I was mattered, my happy place. After he died, it felt Different. I remember looking at the chair he always sat in. No more boots nearby. No more grumppa. And even now I still remember his smile. I hope I never forget that smile. I think that's what a lot of people are searching for, especially when they lost their one person. The person who always made them feel loved unconditionally. it's never been about perfection status or for someone to solve every problem. Just person who themselves one person who makes safe to exist as yourself. One person who makes you feel seen. Maybe ride or die. Isn't about someone dying for you. Maybe it's someone choosing to stay beside you. And that's what I think about Sam Wise from Lord of the Rings. When everything was falling apart, when Frodo, believing he was becoming dangerous to the people around him, when he felt the burden was his fault, believed he had to leave alone he believed he had to leave alone before everyone else got hurt. Sam said no. I'm coming with you. made a promise. And instead and Sam made a promise, and he intended to keep it. Even if he couldn't carry the burden of the ring itself, he could help carry Frodo. That matters. When people talk about ride or die, I think this is what they mean not blind loyalty, not enabling destruction, presence. Sam stayed when Frodo became exhausted, hopeless, paranoid, and overwhelmed by the weight he carried. Sam understood something important. The problem was never Frodo. The burden was consuming him. I think people forget that part of the story sometimes. ring didn't only tempt people with with the ring didn't only tempt people with power, it isolated them. filled them with fear, distrust, exhaustion, Despair. Even Sam eventually left for a moment, because Gollum manipulated him into believing he was the problem. Once Sam realized the truth, he came back. He always came back. He realized it was never about him being unworthy of love. It was about how heavy the burden had become, not just for Froda, but for both of them. I think that reflects life more than people realize. Sometimes the strongest people we know are carrying unimaginable pain quietly. Sometimes the people who once supported everyone else collapsed. under eventually collapse under the weight of their own suffering. It can feel confusing when that happens. You look at those people and you think you're so strong, you're kind, you're always there helping everyone else, not realizing they were surviving while bleeding internally the entire time. Sometimes those people break, sometimes they become hard to be around, withdrawn, irritable, overwhelmed, not abusive, not cruel, just human, exhausted. I want to be careful here. I'm not talking about tolerating abuse in the name of loyalty. Sam and Frodo hurt each other at times, yes. They said things they didn't mean, they struggled, they were being psychologically manipulated and crushed under impossible pressure. That's different from abuse. They didn't double down. They didn't say it was ever okay how they treated each other. I think sometimes we're so quick to attack struggling people that forget what care can do to s we forget what pain can do to someone. Sometimes shame convinces people that they have to carry something alone. Sometimes fear whispers, if people know who you really are, if people really know how bad I'm doing, would they still love me? Sometimes people are barely holding themselves together, climbing their own mountain. Sometimes the most life changing thing a person can do isn't solving your pain. refusing to abandon It's refusing to abandon you in sight of it. It's hard though, because I also think of the green mile. How dare you, Stephen King? How dare you? you, Michael Clarke Michael Dukin? How dare you, Michael Dukin, for making John Coffey feel so heartbreaking. Real. The line, I'm tired, boss, tired of people being ugly to each other has haunted me for years. Not only in my own pain, in the way it made me look at the world. John Coffey, sweet baby, Angel John, loved people. Even after everything, he was on death road. People feared him before they knew him, because he was black. Because he was big, because people saw him as a threat before they saw him as a person. And yet, he loved deeply. Even after being accused of something horrific, of something horrific, even after being even after being treated with cruelty, even after caring pain, most people would collapse under. I think what broke him wasn't only suffering, it was the ugliness, the cruelty, the way people hurt each other so casually. I've felt that exhaustion before. Not simply sadness, emotional exhaustion. The desperate longing for gentleness. Sometimes the hardest part is still trying to be gentle while hurting. Still trying to give kindness away when you feel starred for it yourself. Planting trees you may never sit under. hoping someone else won't feel as alone as you once did. Reflecting on my own breaking points, what I wanted most wasn't perfection. It was the relief from the cruelty. I got tired of the snake eating its own tail, tired of witch hunts, tired of people desperately needing someone to become the villain, sometimes people searching so hard for monsters that they slowly become the monsters themselves. of the scariest moment one of the scariest moments in my life is realizing that if you stare in the darkness long enough, Eventually it can stare back at you and sometimes you see yourself reflected in it. I'm deeply thankful for the people who love me through those moments, especially my best friend, especially my husband. stay kind they stay kind to me even especially my best friends They stayed kind to me even when I was difficult to be around, even when I was hurting, even when they would have been justified in stepping away. Because even to this day They tell me you were always someone who cared deeply, Kimberly. That was obvious from the start. You were deeply broken. Your pain didn't scare me. They treated me softly. I think that changed me more than people realize. For me, ride or die was never about someone destroying themselves for me. It was about someone choosing kindness when cruelty would have been easier. Maybe loyalty matters because kindness is rarer than it should be. For a long time I gave love freely, without recognition, without people seeing the amount of restraint it took me to manage my pain and try not to bleed it onto others. People often confused my bark for my bite. They didn't realize how much effort it took me to stay soft while hurting. In a lot of ways I was being bong, willing to let go of joy so she could go back to Riley, back to her purpose. While disappearing quietly into the shadows myself. That part hurts. Because there are friends I left behind too. People I wish I held on to. People I wish I could stay. People I wish I could still sit beside and hold their hand. Maybe there was another way. Maybe things could have been different. That's where I've had to learn compassion for myself and for others. When people are in crisis, they often can't see possibilities. only see pain, fear, what's w what isn't They only see pain, fear, and what isn't working, what feels impossible to survive, and that's hard. I think one of the saddest things I've ever had done to myself was abandoning versions that were trying deeply to keep me alive. the version Especially the version of me with my first postpartum experience. I was so cruel, critical, ashamed, yet she never abandoned me. She kept me going even when life gave me every reason to stop. She's my hero. She may have thought that she was stupid for being like Mario. Never knowing when to quit. Still trying to save everyone, still trying to reach the next level despite being exhausted. She carried me where I needed to go. She saved me. And I reflect on that a lot. Sometimes people love others in ways they've never fully been thanked for. Teachers, friends, parents, online creators, mentors, strangers, People planting trees. They never get to sit under. And I'm learning that's okay. If stress can spread, maybe calm can too. Maybe kindness can, maybe healing can. Maybe even the simple desire to reconnect with each other can. It can be so hard when we become desperate for connection. Starve for it. Sometimes it becomes easier to accept almost anything, even harm for crumbs of love. I've had people tell me it's us against the world while throwing me under the bus when it suited them. I've had people finally give me the attention and affection I was craving, only to later use my trauma against me the moment I said, Hey, that hurt me. I've been made to feel like an isolated child. I had to earn basic care. Basic emotional safety. Love was something I could lose at any moment. And in those moments I understood how easy it is for a child who feels unloved to burn the village to the ground just to feel a moment of warmth. I also learned something important from strangers who became friends. Real support should not require you to disappear in order to be loved. I am not something to be owned or consumed or controlled. I refuse to be a character from withering heights meant to be possessed. No thank you. I am a person. entitled to kindness everyone is entitled to kindness without strings attached. don't need to I don't need to perform perfectly to be valued. The people who have truly supported me don't expect perfection from me either, and that's hard to accept. They're just glad I showed up, like rude. I did the bare minimum and you're cheering me on. Kim, we love you. Yeah, Kim, really we love you. Like, what the hell? Even when my season of life is messy, overwhelmed, chaotic. They meet me where I'm at. Rude. The audacity. They taught me how to move at my own pace, how to build without fear, how to exist without being punished for needing time, by to the wolves, standing by my side. Standing rather by standing beside me while I learn how Not by throwing me to the wolves, rather by standing beside me while I learned how to walk through it myself. ride or die isn't about maybe right or die isn't about survival through loyalty. Instead it's about love that doesn't disappear when you stop being easy to love. it's not looking for someone who Maybe it's looking for someone who sees us worthy of love, even when we stopped being useful. For me, the person was my best friend. She showed it to me, really. She took the time. She stayed with me even when I was a lot. Even when I was difficult, and even when I was hurting in ways I didn't fully understand yet. She taught me that honesty had value again. That I didn't have to lie even to myself to keep a smile on my face. I think about how much she shaped me today. In a lot of ways, She was my Bingbong. someone who disappeared and not someone who disappeared and sacrificing themselves and never returning. who stayed with me through Someone who stayed with me through it. me toward help Someone who helped carry me forward so we both could keep going. So we could still take Riley to the moon together. She is someone who trusted me even when her own life had taught her not to trust easily. is someone who wanting to believe she was valuable. I love her deeply. separate us, people tried to tell us we were the Even when distance or circumstances shift things, we still cared. We still cheer each other on. I celebrate her wins, she celebrates mine. when can't directly benefit even when we weren't directly benefiting from we always left a shoulder open to cry on. We hope the best for each other when life took us the different even when life took us in different directions. Because some forms of love outgrow possession. And when you really see someone, you realize they are not replaceable. they're not interchangeable. Not temporary in impact. they are one of a kind because of the life you share with them. that doesn't mean you can't love new people along the way. It means love doesn't have to be limited. It can be more like an ocean than a cup. maybe real ride or die love is this. even if our relationship changes, even if life changes, even if distance happens, I still want good things for you. Maybe the people who saved us from despair aren't always the loudest. Maybe they're The ones who sit beside us in the darkness and say, I can't fix this. I'm not leaving you alone in it. Maybe kindness matters more than we realize. Maybe support changes lives in ways we never fully see. Maybe love isn't proven by possession, but rather presence. maybe what most of us are really asking when we say ride or die is will someone still care about me? Even when there's nothing left for me to give. Can I be loved without having to perform for it?