Composure is its own kind of courage
by Rogue Grace | Makeshift Masterpiece – Glimpses of a Life Wrecked with Grace
Note to the reader:
This is the final piece in a loose series of reflections I’ve written on presence, perception, and grace when life feels unsteady.
It started with fumbling the sacred, carried through the cost of showing up, and now lands here—naming what it means to seek calm in a body and world that don’t always cooperate.
Not everything is resolved. But something has been named.
And sometimes, naming it is the resolution.
My deepest desire isn’t success.
It’s not to be understood, or admired, or even healed.
It’s to be calm.
Not just the absence of anger—but the presence of composure.
The kind of calm that breathes slower than the chaos around it.
The kind that stands—not perfectly still, but steadily enough to keep going.
I’ve worked for that kind of calm.
Fought for it.
Cried through it.
And I’m calmer now than I used to be—God, I am.
But it’s not effortless.
It’s not natural.
It’s a learned posture, a stitched-together steadiness that wobbles beneath the surface.
And let’s be clear—this isn’t really about me.
I just happen to live it.
That doesn’t make me special.
It makes me responsible.
If I know what it costs to stand,
then I have to tell the truth about it.
Because maybe you’re carrying a different kind of unsteady—
and you’ve been waiting for someone to say it out loud.
Not to fix it.
Just to name it.
I just hope naming it out loud gives you permission to do the same.
And here’s the thing about a lack of calm
It wears different faces.
Mine happens to live in the body, but maybe yours lives in your mind, or your relationships, or your sense of place in the world.
Lack of calm doesn’t always show up where people can see it.
But it always demands energy.
It always reshapes how we move through the day.
Because it’s hard to feel calm in a body that doesn’t always hold you up.
Hard to trust your balance when your knees whisper betrayal and your spine feels like it’s guessing.
Confidence comes from being steady—
and when you’re not physically steady, everything shakes.
People don’t always understand that.
They see a body standing and assume it’s fine.
But balance—real balance—isn’t just about bones.
It’s about trust.
It’s about nervous systems and muscle memory and invisible work.
And when your foundation shakes, your breath learns to hide.
My brain has to be one step ahead of my body just to keep up.
But that’s nearly impossible—because they were designed to work together, not fight for control.
I’m either anticipating what could go wrong
or recovering from what already has.
Rarely present.
Rarely grounded.
Just suspended in the gap between thought and movement.
And when my feet stumble—so do my thoughts.
So do my words.
So does the rhythm of my breath.
All of a sudden, what was going to be a smooth delivery becomes a reckless mess.
And I have to steady my body
before anything else is secure.
And it breaks my focus.
It brings the stares.
To stay calm when you cannot stay steady
is harder than anyone understands.
I deliver a message through words—
but that message gets lost in the disruption of this body.
The weight of meaning gets tangled in the fight for calm.
Because calm isn’t just stillness.
It’s woven into every vital system:
movement, breath, focus, speech.
When balance falters,
everything else flickers.
Words stumble.
Breath shortens.
Even the message—the thing that matters most—
starts to vanish beneath the noise of keeping upright.
And that’s where the grace goes rogue.
Not soft. Not sanitized.
But stubborn and gritty and still showing up.
Grace that doesn’t wait for composure—
but meets you mid-stagger,
in the gap between the fall and the rise.
And maybe yours has nothing to do with your body.
Maybe your struggle to stay calm is emotional. Hormonal. Relational.
Maybe it’s the pressure to keep pace with a world that won’t slow down.
But it still pulls focus. Still scatters breath.
Still demands a kind of grace most people don’t recognize as sacred.
But grace isn’t always polished.
Sometimes it’s patient. Anchored. Quietly defiant in its decision to stay.
Not dramatic—just unwavering.
It’s funny how rogue grace carries a steady salvation.
Not by repairing the body or mind-
But by remaining through every recalibration of presence.
And I don’t write this just for me.
I name it because I know I’m not the only one walking uneven ground.
Your lack of calm might not look like mine—
maybe it’s your emotions, your schedule, your sense of belonging, or your faith.
Maybe it’s invisible.
Maybe it’s loud.
But I hope this reaches you, wherever your balance wavers.
Because this isn’t just about standing upright.
It’s about making space for the quiet instability we all carry—
and calling it holy, too.
🡒 More in this series:
The Fumble is the Faithful Part
Focus After the Fumble
Growth Doesn’t Have to Break You- But it Might
The Cost of Calm
Small moments. Real grace. Quiet rebellions.
– Rogue Grace
