Etty Hillesum - Our limits

Les écrits d'Etty Hillesum. Journaux et lettres 1941-1943 (The writings of Etty Hillesum. Diaries and letters 1941-1943. Complete edition). Paris: Seuil, 2008, 1081 p.

Saturday morning [July 4, 1942], 9 o'clock.
There it is again, that childish fear of losing a little love by not fully adapting to the other person. But I am beginning to get rid of this kind of attitude. You have to know how to admit your weaknesses, even physical ones. And to know how to resign oneself to not being completely as one would like to be for the other. To confess one's weaknesses is something different from crying about them: it would be the beginning of the end, for the other person and for oneself. I believe that this is what pushed me to rush to his place last night just before 8 o'clock, even cancelling a student, which is not my habit, in order to spend one more moment with him. Once I was lying on the couch next to him, I suddenly told him how much I regretted that this walk had made me so tired; it didn't bother me, but it had taken away almost all my illusions about my physical condition. He said at once, as if it were the most natural thing in the world: "Then it is probably better to give up our Sunday morning walk". I immediately offered to take my bicycle: I would hold it in my hand on the way there and could ride it on the way back. It seems like a detail, but for me it is important. Otherwise I might have damaged my feet to please him and not take the slightest risk of irritating him by spoiling his ride. A possibility that obviously exists only in my imagination. And now I say, quite simply and quite naturally: That's it, my strength goes this far and no further, I can't help it, you have to take me as I am. For me it is a step further towards a maturity, an independence which I now seem to approach day by day.

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