The internet talks about the “soft life” like somebody just invented it.

Apparently, it involves flowers, vacations, silk pajamas, brunch, luxury apartments and a man somewhere in the background paying bills while looking mysteriously employed.

The social media loves an aesthetic.

But the more I thought about the whole idea of a soft life, the more I realized something:

I have always lived one.

Even when my life was hard.

And my life has definitely been hard.

I have struggled financially. I have grieved deeply. I have survived loss, disappointment, uncertainty and periods when life seemed determined to put its foot on my neck and leave it there.

But even during those times, I always found a way to make room for myself.

For me, that usually meant reading.

I read when I was happy.

I read when I was broke.

I read when I was lonely.

I read when I was grieving.

Even in the deepest throes of grief, I could pick up a book.

That was softness.

I just didn’t call it that.

The modern soft-life movement became popular through Nigerian social media culture and later spread throughout the African diaspora. At its heart, it was a rejection of constant struggle, overwork and the belief that suffering somehow makes you a better person.

Black women, especially, understood that message.

Because we have been praised for being strong for generations.

Strong mothers.

Strong daughters.

Strong grandmothers.

Strong workers.

Strong women.

We are supposed to endure everything and somehow still look respectable while doing it.

People love telling Black women how strong we are.

Sometimes I think that compliment has done a lot of damage.

Because strength can become a trap when everybody expects you to live there.

A woman can become so good at surviving that nobody ever asks whether she is enjoying her life.

But here’s the thing I have come to understand:

A soft life is not necessarily an easy life.

Those are not the same thing.

A soft life can exist right in the middle of hardship.

An easy life is a life without much hardship.

Softness can be something you deliberately create.

A cup of coffee in silence.

Music you love.

Closing your door.

Turning your phone off.

Sitting in bed with a book.

Laughing when life has given you very little reason to laugh.

Finding one small part of your life and protecting it from everybody else’s chaos.

That is a soft life too.

And I think that’s why I have always been drawn to books.

Reading created a world inside my life that hardship couldn’t completely invade.

Life could take my money.

Life could break my heart.

Life could disappoint me.

Life could leave me grieving people I loved.

But there was always a book.

There was always somewhere for my mind to go.

There was always some new idea to discover.

Some historical rabbit hole to fall into.

Some character to love.

Some character to cuss out.

Some sentence that made me stop reading for a minute and stare into space because it hit me just that hard.

Books gave me an interior life.

And that interior life belonged to me.

That was important.

Because when your external circumstances are difficult, having a rich inner world can feel like freedom.

I could be struggling financially and still be learning about queens, revolutions, history, sociology or somebody else’s complicated fictional family.

I could be grieving and still find beauty in language.

I could be overwhelmed and still disappear into a book for a few hours.

That wasn’t denial.

That was preservation.

Sometimes people misunderstand softness as weakness.

It isn’t.

Softness can be incredibly deliberate.

It takes something to say, “Life is difficult, but I refuse to let difficulty become my entire personality.”

It takes something to choose pleasure without waiting for permission.

And women are often taught that pleasure must be earned.

Especially Black women.

We are taught to take care of everybody first.

Work first.

Children first.

Family first.

Community first.

Responsibility first.

And maybe somewhere way down at the bottom of the list, if there’s anything left, we can have ourselves.

I never completely accepted that.

Maybe that’s the rebellious streak in me.

Because even when I was struggling, I still found something that was mine.

I read.

I listened to music.

I laughed.

I still got curious about something ridiculous at two in the morning and started researching it.

I still found ways to enjoy my own company.

I still created small pleasures.

That is why I don’t think the soft life should be defined by money.

Money can certainly make life easier. Let’s not lie about that.

Poverty is not romantic.

Financial stress is not character building.

And anybody telling you money doesn’t matter probably has enough of it.

But softness itself is not a luxury product.

You don’t have to fly first class to experience it.

You don’t need a designer purse.

You don’t need a wealthy partner.

You don’t need a marble bathtub overlooking the ocean while somebody sprinkles rose petals around you.

Sometimes softness is a library card.

Sometimes softness is lying in bed surrounded by books.

Sometimes softness is saying no.

Sometimes softness is cutting somebody off.

Sometimes softness is realizing that being exhausted is not a personality trait.

Sometimes softness is leaving the damn phone unanswered.

Sometimes softness is allowing yourself to enjoy life even when everything isn’t perfect.

I think that last part matters most to me.

Because if I had waited until my life was perfect before allowing myself pleasure, I would have missed half my life.

There were always problems.

There was always something to worry about.

There was always some loss, some bill, some responsibility, some uncertainty.

But there was also beauty.

There were books.

There was music.

There was humor.

There was curiosity.

There was solitude.

There was me.

And I learned, maybe without consciously knowing it, that hardship did not deserve every inch of my life.

It could have a piece.

Sometimes it had a big piece.

But it was never getting the whole damn thing.

That may be the real meaning of a soft life.

Not escaping reality.

Not pretending suffering doesn’t exist.

Not waiting for somebody to rescue you.

But refusing to surrender every beautiful thing in your life just because something painful is happening too.

I have known grief and still laughed.

I have known financial struggle and still bought or borrowed a book.

I have known loneliness and still enjoyed solitude.

I have known hardship and still found pleasure.

That is not weakness.

That is not frivolous.

That is survival with your humanity intact.

Maybe I didn’t discover the soft life.

Maybe I just finally found a name for something I had been doing all along.

I have always created softness wherever I could find it.

And when I couldn’t find it, I made it.

Without waiting on anyone.