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“Stay Soft” and “Always Choose to Care”: Rent-Free Poems in my Head Day 4

Posted by Sandhya on

Hey rockstars, 

It’s officially Day 4 of “Rent Free Poem” Week. I’m sorry I’m so late with this post – I honestly was up all night doing work for one of my cases and then I needed to catch some sleep before I drove to work. Then even though I had plans to write this post this morning, my day and to-do list got away from me. Hopefully you all don’t sleep on this post. I shall be back to posting around 8am tomorrow! 

In honor of my entire Instagram FYP being various poems, and in honor of Tay’s new album: The Tortured Poets Department, I decided once a day this week I’m going to pick a poem that’s been living rent-free in my head and write about it. For this, I have to channel all my 10th-grade English reading comprehension skills, but sadly there are no SparkNotes for these poems. So here is me, taking my shallow take on deep poems and hoping I can half-as-eloquently describe how these beautiful pieces of writing made me feel. 

Past Rent-Free Poems: 

For day 4, I’m doing two poems by the same poet, partly because I couldn’t choose, and also because they went hand-in-hand in the message I wanted to get across in today’s post. 

  • Here’s day 4: 

Stay Soft by Bianca Sparacino 

Stay soft. 
Do not let the things that have hurt you 
Turn you into a person you are not.

“Always Choose to Care” by Bianca Sparacino 

Always choose to care. Choose to stay messy-hearted in a world that may not always be kind to you. Choose to do whatever you have to do to make it to tomorrow; choose to get up in the morning when you do not want to, choose to face what is scarred within you

– Please just work every single day to be gentle and soft with yourself, even when you have been given every reason to harden. Choose to believe in something hopeful; choose to feel everything intensely, and do not apologize for your power, your hope, or the way you slam yourself into the human beings you meet. 

Choose to shout your love from rooftops, choose to share your heart with the world. Choose to fight – to be better, to heal even when it hurts, to believe with everything you hold within yourself that you have purpose here and that you belong here – that you deserve to take up space.

I loved both of these poems together because the theme of both of them is about staying “soft” and it’s the validation that my romcom main character’s energy, rose-colored glasses wearing, red flag ignoring, people pleasing, enthusiastically bubbly self need. 

Especially since starting my BigLaw job, when I get to points of burnout then I say “Sometimes I just feel like I’m too soft for this job.” 

Of course, sometimes people say “Yeah, grow a thicker skin,” but it’s not that I don’t have a thick skin. I’m plenty resilient. But softness in this sense, means something else to me. Other people, people who know me, say “You’re not too soft for this job” or even better, “This field needs people like you.” And you know what, they’re right. One thing that I love about my firm and the DC office, in particular, is that I would describe it as “warm.”

People are kind, people are charismatic, people are welcoming, and you know what, everyone here is “soft.” They’re all very comforting and kind, and they’re vulnerable. There are very very few people I can think of in the office who don’t stop to talk to me when I say hi to them or who aren’t excited to hear about my life – whether it’s the staff, paralegals/case assistants, other associates, or partners. 

  • Every evening I’m in the office the receptionist says “Sandhya I made some extra coffee for you because I know you’ll be here a while” and she specifically runs another pot in the Moccamaster and creates extra work for herself to stay later than when her day ends to make me the coffee and create additional work for her the next morning to rinse out the coffee and then make a fresh pot. It’s the little things. 
  • As the co-chair of the Asian American and Pacific Islander ERG along with my sweet friend Megan, we hosted a Lunar New Year Event on Tuesday and one of the partners said “I was hosting a meeting at 12 but I intentionally pushed it to 12:15 to come see you talk.”
  • I host a lot of random social events in the DC office like Afternoon Tea or a Hot Chocolate Bar, and without fail, there are people who come and see me who say “I’m at this event because it’s yours” and that’s incredible to me.

But even outside of work, my friends and family are kind, courteous, gentle people. I’ve never been a “tough love” person, because I don’t think you need to be mean or rude to get your point across. I think the world needs softness, and it needs kind people. Kind people are not weak – we are not naive, we are not dumb, innocent, or clueless. We intentionally make the choice to be kind because it makes the world a little better, easier, and softer. 

“Choose to believe in something hopeful; choose to feel everything intensely, and do not apologize for your power, your hope, or the way you slam yourself into the human beings you meet.” 

I said it in my 24 days till 24 post and I’ll say it again: love unconditionally.

“Don’t cross oceans for people who wouldn’t cross a puddle for you”

“No, do it. Do cross oceans for people. Love people, all people. No conditions attached, no wondering whether or not they’re worthy. Cross oceans, climb mountains. Life and love isn’t about what you gain, it’s about what you give.”

Thank you for joining me in my first rent-free poem week! 

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

If you want to join me to do more rent-free poetry weeks or you want to join me while I go through my 28th year around the sun, then please click the follow or subscribe button! Feel free to connect with me through this platform, twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music, or email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! If you have any suggestions for topics or anything you’d like me to write about, please let me know🙂❤