“There are seasons where life doesn’t fall apart loudly, but quietly — one ordinary day at a time.”
🍵 Tea-Stained Thursdays: From Wherever I Am
For a long time, it looked like a choice from the outside.
Like I stepped away from a life I had helped build.
But from where I was standing, there wasn’t much choice at all —
just a slow collapse and the instinct to survive it.
People talk about the pandemic in neat units of time.
One year. Two years.
A pause, then a return.
For me, it stretched longer.
Six years, maybe.
Long enough that I stopped measuring.
Long enough that I couldn’t tell what parts of me were resting
and what parts were gone.
There was a version of my life where things made sense.
I remember that.
Momentum. Direction.
The feeling of being inside my own days
instead of watching them pass.
Now it comes and goes.
Some mornings I wake up convinced I’m losing —
losing time, losing myself,
losing whatever thread I was meant to follow.
Those are the days when everything feels heavier than it should,
when starting anything feels like proof I’ll fail at it.
And then, sometimes, something shifts.
Not dramatically.
No breakthrough.
Just enough clarity to stand up,
wash my face,
and do what needs doing.
I get a few things done.
I feel almost like myself again.
It lasts a day.
Or two.
Occasionally a week.
Then the weight returns.
The doubt.
The familiar sense of being behind my own life.
The quiet belief that productivity is the same thing as worth —
even though I know better by now.
So I start again.
Not from the beginning.
From wherever I am.
With love,
from the heART.
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