You know what I’ve realized about myself?

I don’t particularly enjoy making new friends.

And before somebody starts diagnosing me, I’m not antisocial. I like people. I enjoy good conversations, laughing, going places, and having somebody to talk shit with.

But the process of getting to know new people?

Whew.

Sometimes I just don’t have the energy.

Because somewhere between getting acquainted and developing a friendship, I feel like I end up with another responsibility.

Managing somebody else’s feelings.

Let me explain.

Have you ever had a perfectly normal interaction with somebody, only to notice afterward that they’re acting differently?

They’re not speaking the same.

Their energy has changed.

The conversation feels awkward.

And you’re sitting there trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Did I say something?

Was it my tone?

Did they misunderstand me?

Am I supposed to ask what’s wrong?

Or are we both about to walk around pretending nothing happened?

And here’s the part that gets me.

Sometimes nobody has actually told you there’s a problem.

You’re just supposed to figure it out.

Now, I understand that people have feelings.

Hell, I have feelings too.

People misunderstand things. We get disappointed. Sometimes something somebody says rubs us the wrong way.

That’s life.

And I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t have feelings or that we should be able to say whatever we want without considering how it affects somebody else.

But I do have a question.

At what point did somebody else’s unspoken disappointment become my responsibility to investigate?

Because that’s where I get tired.

I’m willing to have uncomfortable conversations.

I’m willing to acknowledge when I’ve said something hurtful.

I’m willing to apologize when I’ve done something wrong.

But what I’m not interested in doing is playing emotional detective.

I don’t want to spend my time analyzing facial expressions, interpreting silence, or asking three other people why somebody isn’t speaking to me.

We’re adults.

If something I said bothered you, tell me.

We might discover that I meant something completely different from what you heard.

We might disagree.

I might realize that I could have communicated something better.

Or you might realize that I wasn’t trying to offend you at all.

But we can’t get to any of those places without a conversation.

And here’s something else I’ve been thinking about.

Sometimes we’re so uncomfortable with the possibility that somebody is upset with us that we start trying to fix a problem we don’t even know exists.

We replay conversations.

We change how we act.

We overexplain.

We apologize just to make the awkwardness go away.

And before we know it, we’re managing a relationship based on assumptions instead of actual communication.

I’ve had to remind myself that a change in somebody’s behavior doesn’t automatically mean I’ve done something wrong.

Maybe they’re upset with me.

Maybe they’re having a bad day.

Maybe they’re dealing with something that has absolutely nothing to do with me.

I don’t know until they tell me.

And I don’t think I should have to carry the responsibility of figuring it out every time somebody’s energy changes.

Now, does that mean I should never check on someone?

Of course not.

Sometimes asking, “Hey, is everything okay between us?” is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

There’s nothing weak about initiating a conversation.

But there’s a difference between checking in because you value a relationship and feeling obligated to chase somebody down every time they seem disappointed.

That’s the distinction I’m learning to pay attention to.

Because I genuinely enjoy relationships where people can be themselves.

Where we can disagree without it becoming a personal attack.

Where somebody can say, “I didn’t like that,” and the other person can say, “Okay, let’s talk about it.”

Where every misunderstanding doesn’t have to become a situation.

And where we don’t have to agree on everything to continue respecting one another.

I don’t need every relationship to be conflict-free. I need it to be communicative.

Maybe that’s why making new friends feels exhausting to me sometimes.

Not because I don’t like people.

Not because I don’t care about their feelings.

But because I don’t want another relationship where I feel responsible for maintaining everybody’s emotional comfort.

I already have enough responsibilities.

I don’t need to add “figure out why somebody is acting funny” to my damn to-do list.

And listen, I know communication works both ways.

If I value a relationship, I have to be willing to speak up too.

I can’t expect people to read my mind while complaining that I can’t read theirs.

That’s only fair.

But I think there’s something peaceful about reaching a point in life where you can let people have their feelings without immediately making those feelings your assignment.

If I’ve hurt you, we can talk.

If I’ve misunderstood you, we can clear it up.

If we disagree, that’s okay too.

But if you haven’t told me there’s a problem?

I’m going to keep being respectful, keep minding my business, and let you decide whether you want to have that conversation.

Because I have learned something about myself.

I want relationships that add to my life, not relationships that require me to constantly guess where I stand.

And maybe that doesn’t mean I dislike making new friends.

Maybe it just means I’m becoming more intentional about the relationships I have the energy to maintain.

Let me ask y’all something.

When you notice somebody acting differently toward you, do you address it immediately, or do you wait for them to tell you what’s wrong?

Because I’m genuinely curious how other people handle this.

🤎 Therapeia🤎

Therapeia | Real Life. Real Conversations. No Perfect Answers

I’ve been thinking about my childhood lately.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older.

Maybe it’s because I’m raising my own family.

Or maybe adulthood has finally given me enough perspective to understand things I couldn’t possibly understand as a child.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s.

We didn’t have a lot.

At least, not by today’s standards.

There weren’t packages showing up at the door every other day. We weren’t constantly eating out. We didn’t have a house full of individual screens, subscriptions, food delivery apps, and a million different things competing for our attention.

But here’s the strange thing:

I don’t remember feeling like we didn’t have anything.

Actually, when I think about my childhood now, I remember feeling like we had everything.

And a lot of that was because of my grandmother.

Grandma Took Care of Everybody

My grandmother worked one job.

One.

And somehow, she managed to take care of an entire household.

And when I say she took care of us, I don’t just mean the children who technically belonged to her.

Grandma took care of her grandchildren.

She took care of children who weren’t hers.

If somebody needed somewhere to be, something to eat, or somebody to look after them, somehow Grandma made room.

There were always children around.

There were always people to feed.

And somehow, there was enough.

That’s the part that blows my mind now.

Because I’m an adult.

I know how much groceries cost.

I know what bills look like.

I know what it takes to maintain a household.

And I’m sitting here thinking:

How in the hell was this woman doing all of this on ONE JOB?! 😂

And She Was Home by 3

This might be the part I appreciate most now.

My grandmother worked hard.

But she was off around 3 PM.

There was an end to her workday.

She came home.

As a child, I didn’t understand how valuable that was.

I wasn’t sitting around thinking, Wow, what wonderful work-life balance Grandma has. 😂

I just knew:

Grandma was home.

And there was something comforting about that.

She wasn’t necessarily entertaining us every second.

She didn’t have to.

Her presence was enough.

We knew where she was.

We knew somebody was there.

And somehow, despite working and taking care of all those children, she still had time for us.

That Little Coin Purse

I can still picture my grandmother with her little coin purse.

And baby, this woman carried a regular purse.

A whole purse.

But where did she keep that little coin purse?

In her bra. 😂

If you grew up around Black women of a certain generation, you already know.

Friday would come, and Grandma would reach into that bra and pull out that little coin purse and give us some money to go get snacks.

It probably wasn’t much.

But you couldn’t tell us anything.

We had MONEY.

We weren’t calculating inflation.

We weren’t worried about household expenses.

We didn’t know what bills were due.

We knew it was Friday and Grandma had given us snack money.

Now that I’m grown, I think about that little coin purse differently.

She probably knew exactly how much was in it.

She probably knew exactly what still needed to be paid.

She probably knew exactly how far every dollar had to stretch.

And she still made room for our little Friday snack money.

Kids don’t remember the budget.

They remember how the budget made them feel.

Grandma Cooked

We didn’t eat out all the time.

Grandma cooked.

Every day.

And nobody was standing around taking individual orders like she was running a damn restaurant. 😂

There wasn’t:

“What do you want?”

“I don’t want that.”

“Can we order something else?”

“Can I DoorDash Chick-fil-A?”

Baby, whatever Grandma cooked was what was for dinner.

That was the menu. 😂

And because eating out wasn’t an everyday thing, going to a restaurant actually felt special.

Every other Saturday, we would clean the house.

And I mean clean the house.

Saturday morning wasn’t about lying around asking what everybody wanted to do that day.

We already knew what we were doing.

Cleaning this damn house. 😂

But every other Saturday, after everything was done, Grandma would take us out to eat.

It didn’t have to be some expensive restaurant.

That wasn’t the point.

We were going out.

It was something to look forward to.

It was family time.

It felt special because it wasn’t something we did all the time.

Holidays Felt Like Holidays

And baby…

the holidays.

The holidays were AMAZING.

There was food everywhere.

Family was around.

People were talking.

People were laughing.

Somebody was always in the kitchen.

The house smelled like food before you were fully awake.

Thanksgiving felt like Thanksgiving.

Christmas felt like Christmas.

There was anticipation.

There were traditions.

There were people.

There was something about everybody being together that made the day feel different from every other day of the year.

We may not have gotten everything we wanted.

But I don’t remember sitting around thinking about what I didn’t get.

I remember who was there.

That’s interesting to me now.

And Sunday? We Were Going to Church.

Grandma made sure we went to church on Sunday.

And I don’t remember there being a family vote about it either. 😂

Sunday morning meant getting up.

Getting dressed.

And going to church.

Now that I’m older, I understand that even beyond religion, she was giving us something else:

routine.

tradition.

community.

family.

There were things we simply did together.

Sunday had a rhythm.

Saturday had a rhythm.

Holidays had a rhythm.

Our family had a rhythm.

And I didn’t know how much those little routines were shaping me while I was living them.

Those Years Made Me Who I Am

I’m not interested in turning this into one of those “these kids today” conversations.

Every generation grows up differently.

My childhood wasn’t perfect.

The 80s and 90s weren’t perfect.

And I’m sure there were things my grandmother struggled with that I knew absolutely nothing about.

I was a child.

Maybe she was exhausted.

Maybe she worried about money.

Maybe there were nights she didn’t feel like cooking a damn thing.

Maybe sometimes she went into her room, closed the door and thought:

“I’m sick of all these kids.” 😂

I wouldn’t have known.

Because children don’t always see the sacrifice.

They experience the result of it.

And the result, for me, was a childhood that felt full.

Those years also helped make me who I am today.

I watched a woman work.

I watched her provide.

I watched her stretch what she had.

I watched her take care of people who weren’t even technically her responsibility.

I watched her make something out of whatever was available.

Hard work became normal to me.

Taking care of your family became normal.

Figuring things out became normal.

Making sure your children had what they needed became normal.

And I carried that with me.

So I Worked Hard Too

I grew up.

I built a career.

I built a family.

I worked hard because that’s what I saw.

And somewhere along the way, I decided that success meant being able to give my children things I didn’t have.

More opportunities.

More experiences.

More choices.

More financial security.

More of the things that weren’t available to me growing up.

My husband and I work hard to take care of our family.

And I’m proud of that.

My family has things I couldn’t have imagined having as a child.

But lately, another question has been bothering me.

I spent so much time trying to give my children what I didn’t have…

Have I given enough thought to giving them what I DID have?

Because there’s one thing my grandmother gave us that I’m realizing is harder for me to give.

My Undivided Attention

That’s difficult for me to admit.

Because I love my family.

Everything I’m doing is for my family.

But I work.

And then I have to rest because I worked.

Then there are bills.

Responsibilities.

Things I’m building.

Things I’m planning.

Something always needs my attention.

Sometimes I’m physically present while my mind is somewhere completely different.

And that’s the irony I’m sitting with.

I have more conveniences than my grandmother ever had.

I can order groceries without entering a grocery store.

I can pay bills from my phone.

I can have dinner delivered to my front door.

I can buy almost anything without leaving my bed.

Technology was supposed to give us more time.

And somehow…

I feel like I have less of it.

My grandmother had fewer conveniences.

Less money.

More mouths to feed.

Children around who weren’t even hers.

She cooked every day.

She worked.

She kept a household going.

And somehow…

Grandma had time.

I’m Not Trying to Become My Grandmother

And I think this part matters.

I’m not writing this because I think I should work all day, come home, cook every night, take care of everybody’s children, keep the house clean, go to church every Sunday, create magical holidays and somehow never get tired.

Absolutely not. 😂

I don’t want my memories of Grandma to become another impossible standard for women.

And I don’t want to romanticize struggle.

My grandmother probably made sacrifices I will never fully understand.

This isn’t about going backward.

It’s about deciding what deserves to come forward with us.

Because I don’t need to recreate my grandmother’s life.

I want to recreate some of the feeling of it.

I want my children to remember family being together.

I want holidays to feel like holidays.

I want us to sit down and eat together more.

I want traditions.

I want laughter.

I want moments when nobody is rushing off to the next thing.

I want my children to have memories that don’t require a receipt.

Maybe I Need to Give Them Saturday

Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing.

Maybe providing isn’t always about earning more.

Maybe sometimes providing means protecting time.

Maybe it’s dinner together.

Maybe it’s putting the phone down.

Maybe it’s saying no to an extra obligation.

Maybe it’s cooking something and making everybody sit their asses down at the table. 😂

Maybe it’s creating a tradition.

Maybe it’s protecting the holidays.

Maybe it’s deciding that every once in a while:

This Saturday belongs to us.

Because when I think about my grandmother, I don’t remember what she couldn’t afford.

Isn’t that something?

I remember that little coin purse tucked in her bra.

I remember Friday snack money.

I remember cleaning the house on Saturday.

I remember going out to eat every other Saturday.

I remember Grandma cooking.

I remember Sunday church.

I remember holidays.

I remember food.

I remember all those children.

I remember family.

Most of all…

I remember her.

Maybe We Did Have Everything

We didn’t have everything.

Not technically.

But somehow, it felt like we did.

And maybe that’s what I’m trying to hold onto as I get older.

I don’t want to stop working hard.

That work ethic is part of what my grandmother gave me.

I don’t regret wanting more for my children either.

I’m proud that I can give them things I didn’t have.

I just don’t want “more” to only mean more stuff.

I want to give them some of what Grandma gave me too.

Time.

Tradition.

Family.

Presence.

A home where holidays feel different.

A meal everybody sits down to eat.

A Saturday that belongs to us.

Because maybe one day my children won’t remember every pair of shoes I bought them, every bill I paid, every activity I covered, or every thing I worked so hard to provide.

Maybe they’ll remember something much simpler.

That Mama was there.

And maybe that’s the part of my grandmother’s legacy I need to protect the most.

She couldn’t give us everything.

But somehow, she made us feel like we already had it. ❤️

I was a teenage mother.

And before anybody takes that sentence and turns it into something I didn’t say, let me be clear:

I’m not about to romanticize teen pregnancy.

I’m not about to tell teenagers, Girl, go have you a baby. It all works out! 😂

Absolutely not.

Being a young mother came with responsibilities I couldn’t fully understand before I became one.

There were sacrifices.

There were things I had to figure out earlier than some people my age.

There were probably experiences I missed.

There were times when other young people could make decisions based solely on what they wanted to do, and I couldn’t.

Because I wasn’t only responsible for myself anymore.

But when I look back at my life now, there’s something I can say without hesitation:

I don’t regret having my children young.

I don’t wish them into another timeline.

I don’t wish I had met them ten years later.

I don’t look back at my youth and think my children stole it from me.

That was my youth.

And that was my life.

We Talk About Young Motherhood Like Your Life Is Over

There’s a certain way people talk about teenage mothers.

Like your future has already been decided.

You’re going to struggle.

You ruined your life.

You’ll never finish school.

You’ll never have a career.

You threw away your potential.

And yes, becoming a parent young can make things harder.

Let’s not bullshit about that.

A baby needs what a baby needs regardless of whether you’re 17 or 37.

The bills don’t care how old you are.

Sleep deprivation doesn’t give teenagers a discount. 😂

Childcare is still childcare.

Responsibility is still responsibility.

But harder doesn’t mean impossible.

And taking a different path doesn’t automatically mean you took the wrong one.

I Grew Up While I Was Raising Children

That’s probably one of the strangest things about becoming a mother young.

You’re raising somebody while you’re still becoming yourself.

I didn’t enter motherhood as a fully formed woman who had already figured everything out.

Hell, I’m in my 40s and still figuring some shit out. 😂

So imagine being a teenager.

I had to grow.

Learn.

Make mistakes.

Become more responsible.

Figure out relationships.

Figure out work.

Figure out money.

Figure out who I was.

And I was doing all of that while somebody called me Mama.

That’s a lot.

But when I look backward, I don’t only see the difficulty.

I see growth.

My Children Didn’t Stop My Life From Happening

This is something I feel strongly about.

Sometimes people talk about young mothers as if motherhood is where their story ends.

Mine didn’t.

I worked.

I went to school.

I earned degrees.

I built a career.

I became a professional.

I pursued goals.

I got married.

I raised a family.

I created things.

I changed my mind about things.

I started over in some areas.

I dreamed bigger.

I kept becoming.

My children didn’t arrive and then my life stopped.

I built my life with my children already in it.

That’s an important distinction.

I didn’t have the luxury of building everything first and then making room for children afterward.

The children were already there.

So I built around them.

Sometimes beside them.

Sometimes carrying them.

And I’m sure there were moments when I was tired as hell doing it. 😂

But I did it.

Do I Think Having Children Later Would Have Been Easier?

In some ways?

Hell yes. 😂

Let’s be serious.

More money helps.

Maturity helps.

Life experience helps.

Knowing yourself helps.

Having an established career helps.

There are advantages to waiting.

I’m not denying any of that simply because my story turned out differently.

That’s the nuance I think gets lost sometimes.

I can acknowledge that something was difficult without wishing it never happened.

I can recognize that another path might have been easier without deciding it would have been better for me.

Those are two completely different things.

And No, I Wouldn’t Encourage My Daughters to Follow My Timeline

This is where somebody is probably going to try to catch me. 😂

“Well, if you don’t regret it, would you want your daughters to become teenage mothers?”

Girl.

NO.

😂😂😂

I want my daughters to have choices.

I want them to finish school.

I want them to experience life.

I want them to know themselves.

I want them to become financially stable.

I want them to travel if they want to travel.

Build careers if that’s what they want.

Fall down.

Get back up.

Change their minds.

Have experiences that belong completely to them.

And if they choose motherhood one day, I want them to enter it with as many resources, choices, and supports as possible.

But here’s the thing:

Wanting an easier path for my daughters doesn’t require me to hate mine.

Both things can be true.

I can say:

Baby, I want you to wait.

And also say:

I’m grateful for the life I lived.

Having My Children Young Gave Me Something I Appreciate Now

There’s another side of this that I couldn’t possibly have understood as a teenager.

I had my children young.

Which means I also get to experience them getting older while I’m still relatively young myself.

There’s something beautiful about that.

We’re able to experience adulthood together in a way I couldn’t imagine when they were babies.

I can look at these people I raised and think:

Wait a minute. Y’all are grown?!

Because in my mind, somebody is still supposed to be asking me for a juice box. 😂

And suddenly I’m looking around realizing:

I raised children.

I built a career.

I pursued an education.

I built a life.

And I’m still here with dreams that have absolutely nothing to do with being somebody’s mother.

There’s still more of me to discover.

That’s one of the unexpected gifts of this stage of life.

Motherhood consumed so much of my younger years.

Now I’m getting to meet myself again in a different way.

I Don’t Believe Women Have to Defend Their Timelines

Maybe that’s the bigger conversation.

Women are constantly being told when we’re supposed to do things.

Don’t have children too young.

Don’t wait too long.

Build your career first.

But don’t focus on your career too much.

Get married.

But don’t settle.

Have children.

But make sure you’re financially stable.

And whatever timeline you choose, somebody somewhere will have an opinion about it.

I’m over that.

Some women become mothers at 18.

Some at 28.

Some at 38.

Some never become mothers at all.

There isn’t one timeline that makes a woman’s life meaningful.

There are simply different lives.

Different choices.

Different circumstances.

Different consequences.

Different joys.

Different struggles.

And different stories.

This one happens to be mine.

If I Could Talk to That Teenage Girl

If I could sit across from my teenage self now, knowing everything I know today, I wouldn’t lie to her.

I wouldn’t tell her everything was going to be easy.

It wasn’t.

I wouldn’t pretend she completely understood the responsibility she was taking on.

She didn’t.

I wouldn’t tell her there wouldn’t be sacrifices.

There were.

I wouldn’t pretend there weren’t things she would have to figure out the hard way.

There were plenty.

But I also wouldn’t look at her with pity.

I wouldn’t tell her she ruined her life.

I wouldn’t tell her that motherhood meant her dreams were over.

Because I know something she didn’t know yet.

Her life wasn’t over.

It was going to look different.

She was going to raise children while still growing up herself.

She was going to make mistakes.

She was going to figure some shit out the hard way.

She was going to work.

Learn.

Love.

Grow.

Go to school.

Build a career.

Create a life.

Become a woman she couldn’t possibly imagine yet.

And one day she’d look at those children she had so young and realize:

I don’t wish you had come later.

I’m just grateful you came.

For the mothers who had their children young:

Do you ever look back and realize that you were growing up right alongside your children?

And if you could talk to the young woman you were then not to change her choices, but simply to prepare her for the life ahead what would you tell her?

I’m about to say something that might piss some educated people off.

Having a college degree does not automatically mean you’re intelligent.

There.

I said it.

And before anybody comes for me, let me make something clear:

I believe in education.

I have degrees. I’ve spent years in school. I have professional credentials. I understand the work, sacrifice, discipline, money, late nights, papers, exams, internships, and everything else that can go into earning those letters behind your name.

Education matters.

Training matters.

Credentials matter.

But the older I get, the more I realize that we’ve started using those things as evidence of something they don’t necessarily prove.

That somebody can actually think.

A degree proves you earned a degree

That’s not an insult.

Completing college is an accomplishment.

It tells me you completed an academic program. Depending on the degree, it may tell me you’ve studied a particular subject extensively. It can tell me you were persistent enough to meet a long list of requirements.

A professional license tells me you’ve met certain standards established for that profession.

A certification tells me you’ve completed whatever was required to obtain that certification.

A job title tells me you’ve been hired, promoted, appointed, or selected for a position.

All of those things can be meaningful accomplishments.

But none of them automatically tells me:

How do you think?

Can you solve a problem when the answer isn’t in a textbook?

Can you listen to information that contradicts what you already believe?

Can you recognize when you don’t know something?

Can you apply what you learned?

Can you read a situation?

Can you adapt?

Can you admit when you’re wrong?

Can you make a good decision when there isn’t a perfect answer?

Can you learn from experience?

Because that’s where things get interesting.

Knowledge and intelligence aren’t exactly the same thing

You can know a lot of information and still have terrible judgment.

You can memorize information well enough to pass an exam and struggle to apply that information in real life.

You can have an advanced degree and lack emotional intelligence.

You can be highly educated and have very little self-awareness.

You can know every technical term in your profession and still not know how to communicate with another human being.

And yes…

You can have letters behind your name and still say some shit that makes everybody else in the room wonder:

How did you get through school?

😂

We don’t like saying that part out loud.

But we’ve all experienced it.

You’ve probably worked with someone and thought:

Wait…YOU’RE in charge?

Or listened to somebody speak and quietly wondered how their credentials and what was coming out of their mouth existed in the same person.

And the opposite happens too.

Some of the smartest people I’ve met don’t have impressive credentials

This is another mistake we make.

We assume that if someone doesn’t have a college degree, they’re somehow less intelligent than someone who does.

That’s ridiculous.

Formal education is one way people develop knowledge.

It isn’t the only way human beings become intelligent, capable, skilled, insightful, or successful.

There are people who never stepped foot in graduate school who can build businesses from nothing.

There are people who can take apart an engine and put it back together but couldn’t tell you the first thing about writing a research paper.

There are people who can walk into a room and understand the dynamics between everyone in it before anybody says a word.

There are people who understand money, people, systems, technology, construction, art, parenting, business, leadership, or survival because they learned through experience.

There are people who didn’t have the opportunity to go to college at all.

And there are people who simply chose another path.

None of that tells us how intelligent they are.

Intelligence shows up in different ways

For me, intelligence has become less about what you know and more about what you can do with what you know.

Can you think critically?

Can you make connections?

Can you ask good questions?

Can you recognize patterns?

Can you problem-solve?

Can you communicate?

Can you adapt when something changes?

Can you learn from somebody who doesn’t have the same background as you?

Can you recognize your own biases?

Can you change your mind when better information becomes available?

And here’s a big one:

Can you say, “I don’t know”?

Because I have developed a whole new appreciation for those three words.

“I don’t know” might be one of the smartest things you can say

Somewhere along the way, we started treating intelligence like knowing everything.

Especially professionally.

If you have a degree…

If you have a license…

If you’re the supervisor…

If you’re the expert…

If you’ve been doing something for 20 years…

people expect you to have answers.

And some people become so uncomfortable admitting that they don’t know something that they would rather confidently give a wrong answer than simply say:

“I don’t know. Let me find out.”

That scares me more than somebody who doesn’t know.

Because not knowing isn’t the problem.

Not knowing that you don’t know is the problem.

None of us knows everything.

I don’t care how many degrees you have.

I don’t care how many letters are behind your name.

I don’t care how long you’ve been doing your job.

There will always be something you don’t know.

And sometimes the smartest person in the room is the person secure enough to recognize it.

Confidence can fool us

We also have a habit of confusing confidence with competence.

Someone speaks loudly.

They’re decisive.

They use the right terminology.

They have an impressive title.

They sound absolutely certain.

So we assume:

They must know what they’re talking about.

Not necessarily.

😂

Some people are just confidently wrong.

Meanwhile, someone else might be sitting quietly, questioning themselves, checking information, thinking through different possibilities, and considering whether there is something they’ve missed.

We may interpret that hesitation as weakness.

But sometimes that’s critical thinking happening in real time.

Intelligent people don’t always have immediate answers.

Sometimes they have better questions.

Education should make us more curious—not more arrogant

This might be the biggest thing for me.

The more you learn, the more you should realize how much there is left to learn.

Education shouldn’t make you believe you’re automatically the smartest person in the room.

It should expand the room.

It should expose you to perspectives you hadn’t considered.

It should teach you how to evaluate information.

It should make you curious.

It should make you question.

And hopefully, every once in a while, it should make you say:

“Damn. I was wrong about that.”

That’s growth.

Your education isn’t diminished because somebody without your credentials knows something you don’t.

Your intelligence isn’t threatened because you need to ask for help.

Your expertise isn’t erased because another person teaches you something.

And I’m not diminishing degrees

I want to be very clear about this because I can already hear somebody typing.

“So now education doesn’t matter?”

That’s not what I’m saying.

Of course it matters.

There are professions where formal education and specialized training are absolutely essential.

I want my surgeon educated.

Please.

😂

I want engineers to understand engineering.

I want attorneys trained in law.

I want mental health professionals appropriately trained.

I want people doing specialized work to have the education and competency necessary to do that work safely.

But education and intelligence are not interchangeable words.

A degree can get you into the room.

What you do once you’re there is something else entirely.

Take everything away

Here’s the question I’ve been sitting with:

If I took away your degree…

Your job title…

Your license…

Your certifications…

Your position…

Your salary…

Your office…

And every letter behind your name…

What would demonstrate that you’re intelligent?

Would it be how you solve problems?

How you treat people?

The questions you ask?

Your judgment?

Your curiosity?

Your creativity?

Your ability to learn?

Your willingness to admit when you’re wrong?

Your ability to take what you know and actually do something useful with it?

Because that’s the part no diploma hanging on a wall can answer for us.

Be proud of your education—just don’t hide behind it

Get the degree.

Earn the certification.

Get licensed.

Finish the doctorate.

Learn everything you can.

And be proud of yourself.

Those accomplishments deserve to be celebrated.

But don’t become so impressed with your credentials that you stop questioning yourself.

Don’t assume somebody knows less because they have fewer letters behind their name.

And don’t assume somebody knows more simply because they have more.

Listen to what people actually say.

Watch what they actually do.

Pay attention to how they think.

Because sometimes the smartest person in the room isn’t the person with the most degrees.

Sometimes it’s the person who can say:

“I might be wrong.”

“I don’t know.”

“Let me find out.”

“Teach me.”

And sometimes the most concerning person in the room is the one with enough credentials to be trusted…

and enough confidence to never question whether they’re right.

Now I’m curious.

Do you think we’ve started confusing education with intelligence?

And here’s the harder question:

If your degrees, credentials, and job title disappeared tomorrow, what about YOU would still demonstrate your intelligence?

My husband has accused me of stealing.

Repeatedly.

Now before anybody gets concerned, I’m not stealing money.

I’m not hiding credit cards.

I’m not transferring funds into some secret account.

Nothing has happened that requires law enforcement.

This man is accusing me of stealing…

his socks.

And apparently, this alleged criminal activity has been going on for YEARS.

According to my husband, I steal his socks.

I steal his T-shirts.

I steal his blankets.

I steal his side of the bed.

At this point, I’m surprised he hasn’t started doing inventory before he leaves the house.

And I would like an opportunity to defend myself.

First of all, I don’t steal his T-shirts

I sleep in them.

There is a difference.

Do I ask permission before putting one on?

No.

But we’re married.

I didn’t realize we were still operating individual inventory after all these years.

What’s mine is mine.

And what’s his is…

comfortable.

😂

Why would I put on an actual pajama shirt when there is a perfectly good oversized T-shirt hanging three feet away?

His shirts are already broken in.

They’re soft.

They’re big.

They’re comfortable.

They’re perfect for sleeping.

This isn’t theft.

This is marriage-based resource sharing.

And quite frankly, I don’t appreciate the criminalization of it.

Now, about the socks…

Okay.

This one may be slightly harder to defend.

Because I have socks.

Plenty of them.

But sometimes I can’t find mine.

And his are right there.

So naturally, I put them on.

Apparently, he has been keeping track.

I’ll be walking around the house minding my business, and he’ll look down at my feet.

“Are those my socks?”

Why are you looking at my feet?!

😂

And yes.

They probably are.

But I’m going to wash them.

Eventually.

What’s the problem?

He acts like I’m taking them out of the house and selling them.

Sir, your socks are still in the family.

Calm down.

His most serious accusation involves the bed

According to my husband, I take up the entire bed.

Now this accusation I completely reject.

Because I am 5’2”.

Five feet.

Two inches.

Please explain to me how 5’2” of woman is occupying an entire mattress.

The math isn’t mathing.

He has considerably more body than I do.

So if anyone should be investigated for mattress monopolization, I know exactly where I’d start.

But according to him, I don’t sleep vertically like a normal person.

Apparently, I migrate.

I start on my side.

Then at some point during the night, a leg crosses the border.

Then maybe an arm.

Then somehow I’m in the middle.

And eventually he’s hanging onto the edge of the mattress like he’s trying not to fall off a cliff.

I have no evidence of this.

Because I’m asleep.

Therefore, these are allegations.

😂

He’ll wake up talking about:

“You were all on my side last night.”

Sir.

Do you have footage?

Because otherwise, I don’t know what to tell you.

But marriage does something funny to “mine” and “yours”

The more I thought about it, though, the funnier it became.

Because somewhere along the way in a marriage, the lines around ownership start getting a little blurry.

His T-shirt becomes my sleep shirt.

His socks become the socks I grab when I can’t find mine.

His blanket becomes our blanket.

His side of the bed becomes wherever I happen to roll at 2:37 in the morning.

His food becomes something I’m entitled to taste even though I specifically told him I didn’t want anything when he asked me what I wanted.

Actually, that one might be universal.

Because why would I order my own fries when you have fries sitting right there?

😂

And I know I’m not the only wife doing this.

There are women all over America right now wearing a man’s T-shirt that he has been looking for since 2022.

And we’re comfortable.

He should have read the fine print

Maybe this should have been discussed before we got married.

Maybe somewhere in the vows there should’ve been a section:

By entering into this marriage, you acknowledge that your spouse may occasionally assume partial ownership of the following:

T-shirts.

Socks.

Hoodies.

Blankets.

French fries.

Phone chargers.

And approximately 73% of the bed.

Initial here: ________

Because apparently my husband entered this marriage without fully understanding the terms.

That’s unfortunate.

But we’ve been together too long to renegotiate now.

And here’s the thing…

For all his complaining, let me stop acting like I don’t know something else.

There’s something comforting about wearing his clothes.

His oversized T-shirt feels better than my pajamas.

Sometimes his hoodie is the first thing I grab when I’m cold.

There’s something about being wrapped up in something that belongs to the person you love that feels like home.

Not that I’m going to tell him all of that.

Because then he’ll think I’ve admitted to stealing.

And I have admitted to NOTHING.

😂

I am simply borrowing items from our shared marital ecosystem.

Without asking.

For extended periods of time.

Okay…

That sounded a little like stealing.

Moving on.

So yes, some of his belongings have migrated into my possession

But I think calling me a thief is unnecessarily dramatic.

I prefer:

Marriage-based redistribution of resources.

And after all these years, if this man hasn’t figured out that marrying me meant surrendering partial ownership of his T-shirts, socks, hoodies, blankets, food, and personal sleeping space…

I really don’t know what to tell him.

He should’ve read the fine print.

Actually, there wasn’t any fine print.

But there should have been.

And tonight, if I happen to go to sleep wearing his T-shirt and his socks while lying partially on his side of the bed…

That’s between me and God.

😂

Married people, I need you to settle this for us.

Once you’re married, are his T-shirts still HIS T-shirts?

And while we’re here:

What does your spouse accuse you of stealing?

Because I know I am not the only alleged criminal in a long-term relationship. 😂

I have four sons.

FOUR.

So by the time I had my twin daughters, I thought I knew what raising children cost.

I had experience.

I had been through school clothes, shoes, birthdays, Christmases, sports, haircuts, teenagers wanting name-brand everything, and boys eating every damn thing in the refrigerator.

I thought I was prepared.

I was not.

Apparently, I had been parenting on the economy plan this entire time.

Because now I have teenage girls.

Twin teenage girls.

And homecoming is coming.

Lord.

I thought I knew how homecoming worked

I’ve done this before.

With my sons, homecoming was pretty straightforward.

Get a haircut.

Get a suit or some nice dress clothes.

Make sure you have some decent shoes.

Maybe throw in some cologne.

Take 97 pictures even though he’s irritated by picture number six.

And then:

Go enjoy yourself, son.

Done.

Why did nobody tell me that when you have daughters, THE DRESS IS JUST THE DEPOSIT?!

Because apparently buying the dress doesn’t mean we’re finished.

Oh no.

That’s just admission into the financial nightmare.

We need the dress.

Then we need the shoes.

Then we need the hair.

Then we need the nails.

Then somebody starts talking about toes.

TOES?!

Why are we discussing toes?!

Apparently, if the shoe is open-toed, we cannot have an unprepared toe attending homecoming.

Okay.

Then there’s makeup.

Jewelry.

Accessories.

A purse.

And whatever else I haven’t been informed about yet.

Because I’ve learned something about teenage girls:

They release expenses in phases.

They don’t tell you everything at once.

That would give you an opportunity to say no.

Instead, they give you a little bit at a time.

“Ma, I need…”

At this point, I don’t even want to hear what comes after I need.

Because whatever comes next costs money.

And did I mention there are TWO OF THEM?

This is where God really has a sense of humor.

Because I didn’t just have a daughter.

I had twin daughters.

So every time somebody tells me a price, my brain automatically has to hit the ×2 button.

Hair?

×2.

Nails?

×2.

Dresses?

×2.

Shoes?

×2.

Accessories?

×2.

And before anybody says, “Well, can’t they share?”

Share WHAT?

They’re going to the same damn dance. 😂

I can’t send one daughter in the dress Saturday and tell the other one, “Your turn is Sunday.”

And they’re two different people. They have different styles. They don’t necessarily want the same dress, the same hair, the same shoes, or the same anything.

So I’m standing here looking at my bank account thinking:

I raised FOUR boys. How are these TWO girls giving me a run for my money?!

But then I started thinking about it

Underneath all my complaining—and trust me, I’m going to continue complaining—I started wondering:

Are girls actually more expensive?

Or have we created so many expectations around what girls are supposed to look like that one event now requires an entire production?

Because my sons wanted to look good too.

They cared about their clothes.

They wanted fresh haircuts.

They wanted nice shoes.

But the checklist was shorter.

For girls, there’s an entire beauty industry waiting for them before they even leave high school.

Hair.

Nails.

Lashes.

Makeup.

Skin.

Brows.

Clothes.

Shoes.

Jewelry.

Accessories.

And social media has probably added another layer.

They’re seeing everybody else’s homecoming pictures.

They’re seeing the professional-looking photos.

The elaborate dresses.

The hairstyles.

The nails.

The makeup.

The whole presentation.

So something that used to be:

“I’m going to the school dance.”

can start feeling like:

“This is my red-carpet debut.”

And as their mother, I’m caught somewhere between:

“You absolutely do NOT need all that.”

and

“I want my babies to feel beautiful and enjoy this moment.”

And THAT is how they get you.

Because I’m going to pay for it

Let me stop lying to y’all.

I’m writing this whole article like I’m about to put my foot down.

I’m not.

😂

I’m going to complain.

I’m going to ask why everything costs so damn much.

I’m going to say, “When your brothers went to homecoming, all I had to do was…” at least 14 times.

I’m going to tell them they don’t need half the stuff they’re asking for.

I’m going to stare at prices like the cashier personally offended me.

I’m probably going to call my husband and say:

“Do you know how much these people want for HAIR?!”

And then…

I’m going to pay for it.

Because they’re my girls.

And I know what’s going to happen.

The day of homecoming, they’re going to get dressed.

Their hair is going to be done.

Their nails are going to be done.

They’re going to walk out looking all grown and beautiful.

I’m going to start taking pictures.

Then I’m going to start telling them how pretty they look.

Then I’m probably going to get emotional because somehow the babies who used to need me for everything are teenagers going to homecoming.

And for about 15 minutes, I’ll forget how much the whole thing cost.

About 15 minutes.

Then I’ll check my bank account.

😂

And then I remembered something worse

PROM.

I forgot about prom.

If this is what we’re doing for homecoming, what the hell happens at prom?!

Don’t answer that.

Actually, please answer it because apparently I need time to financially prepare.

I have two girls.

At the same time.

Going through all of this.

At the same time.

Somebody should have included this information when they handed me those babies.

Forget the parenting books.

I needed somebody to hand me a pamphlet that said:

Congratulations! They’re girls. Start a separate savings account immediately.

Because apparently raising four boys did not prepare me for this tax bracket.

Not even a little bit.

Boy moms and girl moms, I need answers.

Are daughters really more expensive, or did my sons just have me spoiled?

And if you’ve already survived teenage girls:

What are y’all spending on homecoming—and how scared should I be of prom? 😂

Because at this point, I need numbers.

And possibly a second job.

My husband told me something that irritated me.

He thinks I let social media influence too many of my decisions.

And this time, we’re talking about a Tesla.

Let me explain.

I really want a Tesla. And when I say really, I mean I’ve already pictured myself in it. I’ve looked at the models. I’ve talked about when I’m going to get it. I’ve thought about what I want. This isn’t some random car I saw last week and suddenly decided I needed.

I want the damn Tesla.

But lately, I’ve been seeing things on social media about what’s happening in California involving Black people and Tesla, and it made me uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable enough that I started thinking:

Maybe I don’t want to support this company.

And here comes my husband.

Basically:

“See. This is what I’m talking about. You let social media influence your decisions.”

Now, of course, my first reaction was to defend myself.

Because in my mind, I’m not letting social media make my decision.

I’m learning something I didn’t know before, and that new information is making me reconsider a decision I had already made.

Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do when we learn something new?

But then I started thinking about what he said.

And that’s where it got uncomfortable.

Am I informed—or am I influenced?

Because there actually is a difference.

If I learn something about a company that doesn’t align with my values, I don’t think I should ignore it simply because I like what they’re selling.

But social media is also…social media.

We scroll past a 30-second video.

Read a caption.

See hundreds of angry comments.

Then another video comes up.

And another.

And another.

Before we know it, we’ve developed an entire opinion about something we may not have actually researched ourselves.

And if I’m being fair, there have probably been times when I’ve done exactly that.

Something happens.

Everybody starts talking about it.

My timeline becomes flooded with it.

And suddenly I’m thinking differently about something I felt completely different about three days ago.

My husband sees that and says:

“Social media influenced you.”

I see it and say:

“I got new information.”

Maybe we’re both describing pieces of the same thing.

And this is bigger than a Tesla

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how many decisions we make now based on something we saw online.

Somebody posts a horrible experience at a restaurant and we’re never eating there again.

Someone makes a video about a vacation destination and suddenly we’re afraid to go.

A relationship expert tells us something is a red flag and now we’re looking sideways at the person we’ve been married to for 15 years.

Somebody says a certain food is terrible for us and suddenly we’re cleaning out the refrigerator.

A celebrity does something we don’t agree with and we stop watching their movies, buying their products, or listening to their music.

A company goes viral for the wrong reason and suddenly something we’ve wanted for months doesn’t feel the same anymore.

Sometimes that’s warranted.

Sometimes social media exposes things we should know.

There are stories, experiences, and perspectives I probably would never hear about if people didn’t have the ability to share them online.

That matters.

But sometimes we’re also reacting before we’ve even figured out what actually happened.

And that’s the part of this conversation with my husband that I couldn’t completely dismiss.

Maybe I need a boundary with social media, too

I’m still deciding how I feel about the Tesla.

And I don’t think reconsidering a purchase because of my values automatically means I’ve been manipulated by social media.

Information should influence some of our decisions.

That’s part of learning.

If I learn something today that I didn’t know yesterday, I’m allowed to reconsider what I thought yesterday.

But my husband did make me realize that I probably need another step before I let something I see online completely change a decision I’ve already made.

Maybe I need to ask myself:

Did I research this—or did I react to it?

Did I look beyond the post?

Did I check where the information came from?

Did I look for context?

Did I seek out information that challenged what I had already seen?

Would I feel this strongly if I hadn’t watched 15 videos about it in one sitting?

And probably the biggest question:

Am I making this decision because it aligns with my values—or because an algorithm successfully made me angry?

Whew.

Because those are two very different things.

I don’t want an algorithm making my decisions

I don’t want to walk around uninformed just so nobody can say social media influences me.

That doesn’t make sense either.

I want to know what’s happening.

I want to hear other people’s experiences.

And if I learn something that genuinely conflicts with what I believe, I want the freedom to change my mind.

But I also don’t want an algorithm deciding what I believe.

What I fear.

Where I go.

What I buy.

Who I support.

Who I dislike.

Or what I stop enjoying.

There has to be something in between being completely disconnected from what’s happening around us and allowing every viral post to become our newest conviction.

And apparently, I’m over here writing about boundaries while discovering that I might need one with my own damn phone.

The irony is not lost on me.

So…am I still getting the Tesla?

I don’t know.

And maybe that’s actually okay.

I still want it.

Bad.

But wanting something doesn’t mean I have to ignore questions that matter to me.

And seeing something disturbing online doesn’t mean I have to make a permanent decision five minutes later either.

Maybe I can sit with the discomfort.

Do my own research.

Figure out what matters to me.

And then decide.

Not because my husband thinks I should buy it.

Not because social media thinks I shouldn’t.

But because I understand why I’m making the choice.

Which, now that I think about it, sounds suspiciously like everything I’ve been saying about boundaries.

Pause.

Check in.

Consider.

Choose.

Then live with the choice and learn from the experience.

Damn.

Apparently, Boundaries Without Guilt has made its way into my car shopping too.

😂

And as for my husband…

Please don’t tell that man I wrote an entire article because there’s a possibility he had a point.

I will never hear the end of it.

Now I want to hear from you.

Has something you saw on social media ever made you completely change a decision you had already made?

And when you look back at it now:

Were you informed—or were you influenced?

I have a question.

When did everything we enjoy become something we were supposed to make money from?

You like to cook?

“You should sell plates.”

You make candles?

“You should start a business.”

You decorate your house really well?

“You should do interior design.”

You write?

“You should start a Substack.”

Okay, technically I did that last one. 😂

But you get my point.

Somewhere along the way, it feels like we stopped being allowed to just like shit.

Everything has to become something.

A business.

A brand.

A side hustle.

Content.

A second stream of income.

And listen—I understand it.

Everything is expensive as hell.

If somebody told me I could make extra money doing something I already enjoy, I’m probably going to listen. 😂

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make money from your gifts.

But lately I’ve been thinking about what happens after we decide to monetize the thing we love.

Because something changes.

You used to write because you had something to say.

Now you’re checking views.

You used to make something because creating it felt good.

Now you’re wondering whether anybody will buy it.

You used to post because something made you laugh.

Now you’re thinking about engagement, algorithms, consistency, posting times, followers and whether you need a damn content strategy.

And suddenly the thing that gave you a break from work…

starts feeling like work.

That’s the part I’m paying attention to.

Because I don’t think the answer is that we shouldn’t monetize the things we love.

Hell, I want to make money doing things I actually enjoy too.

I think the question is:

Can I make money from something without allowing the money to become the only reason I do it?

Can I still write something simply because I needed to get it out of my head?

Can I create something that never sells?

Can I try something and decide I don’t want to turn it into a business?

Can I have a hobby that remains a hobby?

Can I make something without immediately asking:

How can I grow this?

Can I monetize it?

Should I be more consistent?

What’s the strategy?

Damn.

Can I like it first? 😂

Maybe that’s what I’m trying to protect.

The part that existed before the pressure to make it productive.

Because I don’t want to become so focused on making a living that I accidentally turn everything that makes me feel alive into another obligation.

And maybe that’s the balance.

Make the money.

Build the thing.

Take the opportunity.

Dream bigger if you want to.

But leave a little room for joy that doesn’t have to prove its value by producing a damn thing.

Maybe everything I enjoy doesn’t need a five-year plan.

Maybe some things are allowed to grow because I love doing them.

And maybe I can figure out what they become later.

For now?

Can I just enjoy my shit first? 😂

🤎 Therapeia 🤎

I don’t want to do shit today.

That’s it.

That’s the diagnosis.

I don’t want to work. I don’t want to create. I don’t want to answer messages. I don’t want to organize anything.

I don’t even want to make a list of the shit I don’t want to do.

And, naturally, the therapist part of my brain wants to investigate.

Are you overwhelmed?

Are you burned out?

Are you avoiding something?

Do you need better boundaries?

Maybe you need to reevaluate your schedule.

Girl.

I need you to shut up too.

Because maybe nothing is wrong.

Why Does Everything Need an Explanation?

We’ve gotten really good at analyzing ourselves.

Tired? Burnout.

Unmotivated? Lost your purpose.

Don’t want to answer anybody? Boundaries.

Want to lie on the couch watching television for six hours?

Clearly we need to discuss your coping mechanisms.

Or…

Maybe I want to lie on the damn couch.

I don’t need to journal about it.

I don’t need to reconnect with my purpose.

I don’t need to optimize my rest.

And please don’t give me a self-care checklist.

Now you’ve given me MORE SHIT TO DO on the day I specifically said I DON’T WANT TO DO SHIT.

Maybe Nothing Is Wrong

Obviously, if you consistently don’t want to do anything or something feels genuinely different, that’s worth paying attention to.

But I’m talking about today.

Some days I’m motivated.

Some days I’m creative.

Some days I’m knocking things off the list.

And some days?

Please don’t ask me for shit.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll answer the messages.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll tackle the list.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll be productive.

But today?

I don’t want to do shit.

And for once, I’m not going to turn that into something I need to fix.

The list will still be there tomorrow.

Unfortunately. 😂

Therapeia Reflection

Can you have a day where you don’t feel like doing anything without immediately trying to figure out what’s wrong with you?

What if “I don’t feel like it” was enough of an explanation today?

There are things in my life right now that I once prayed for.

Things I worked for.

Things I sacrificed for.

Things I stayed up late thinking about.

Things I told myself:

One day.

One day I’ll make more money.

One day I’ll have the career.

One day I’ll have stability.

One day I’ll have the credentials.

One day I’ll be able to afford the things I want.

One day I’ll have options.

And then something strange happens when some of those “one days” finally arrive.

You look around at the life you worked so hard to build and think:

Wait.

I got here.

Why am I still running?

And maybe an even scarier question:

Do I still want everything I worked this hard to get?

That Question Feels Ungrateful

I think that’s why it’s uncomfortable to even say it out loud.

Because how do you admit that something you once desperately wanted doesn’t feel the same anymore?

Especially when you remember the version of yourself who would have given anything to have what you have now.

Part of you wants to tell yourself:

Girl, you better be grateful.

And I am.

That’s the complicated part.

I can be grateful and still be tired.

I can appreciate what I’ve built and still question whether I want to keep building it the same way.

I can recognize how far I’ve come and still wonder where I want to go next.

Gratitude and reassessment can exist at the same time.

Maybe that’s what I’m learning.

Sometimes Getting What You Want Gives You New Information

We spend so much time talking about achieving our goals that we don’t talk enough about what happens after we achieve them.

Because sometimes the dream looks different when you’re actually living inside of it.

The career comes with responsibilities you didn’t understand when you wanted the title.

The money comes with work that requires more of you than you expected.

The house comes with bills.

Success comes with expectations.

Being needed can start feeling a whole lot like never being able to stop.

And sometimes you don’t know how something will feel until you actually experience it.

That doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision.

It means you have more information now.

And what you know now is allowed to influence what you choose next.

The Version of Me Who Wanted This Wasn’t Wrong

I don’t want to look back at my younger self and criticize her.

She had reasons for wanting what she wanted.

Maybe she wanted security.

Maybe she wanted financial freedom.

Maybe she wanted to prove that she could do something.

Maybe she wanted a different life for her family.

Maybe she wanted accomplishments that nobody could take away from her.

Maybe she was trying to survive.

Maybe she was trying to build.

Maybe she simply wanted more.

And she did the best she could with what she knew at the time.

I’m proud of her.

She got me here.

But here’s something I’m starting to understand:

She doesn’t have to make every decision for the woman I am now.

The Woman I Am Now Gets a Vote Too

That sentence has been sitting with me.

The woman I am now gets a vote too.

Not just the woman who made the five-year plan.

Not just the woman who decided what success was supposed to look like years ago.

Not just the woman who promised herself:

When I get there, I’ll finally be happy.

The woman living the life today gets a vote.

And maybe she wants something different.

Maybe she wants more time.

Maybe she wants more peace.

Maybe she wants fewer obligations.

Maybe she wants to work differently.

Maybe she wants to travel.

Maybe she wants to create.

Maybe she wants to sit her ass down somewhere.

Maybe she doesn’t even know what she wants yet.

And maybe that’s okay too.

Sometimes Changing Your Mind Feels Like Quitting

This is where it gets hard for me.

Because if I worked my ass off to get somewhere and then decide I don’t want it anymore, part of me immediately thinks:

So what was all that work for?

Did I waste my time?

Am I giving up?

Am I being inconsistent?

What are people going to think?

Especially if I’ve spent years telling everybody:

This is what I’m working toward.

Now I have to turn around and say:

Actually…I don’t know if I want this shit anymore.

That’s awkward.

But maybe changing your mind doesn’t erase the value of what came before it.

Maybe something can be right for one season and not right for the next.

Maybe the point wasn’t that I had to stay there forever.

Maybe the point was that I needed that experience to learn something about myself.

How Much of My Life Am I Maintaining Because I Already Built It?

That’s a question.

Because sometimes we continue doing things simply because we’ve already invested so much into them.

Time.

Money.

Education.

Energy.

Identity.

Other people’s expectations.

We’ve told everybody who we are.

We’ve built a life around it.

So even when something starts feeling different, walking away—or even changing direction—feels enormous.

But I’ve started asking myself:

How much of the life I’m currently maintaining was chosen by the woman I am today?

And how much of it was chosen by a version of me who was trying to survive?

Trying to prove something?

Trying to achieve something?

Trying to finally feel secure?

Those aren’t necessarily bad reasons.

But they’re worth examining.

Because maybe I don’t need the same things from my life anymore.

Success Can Change Its Definition

There was a time when success meant accomplishing more.

More education.

More credentials.

More income.

More opportunities.

More stability.

More proof that I could do it.

But lately I’ve been wondering whether my definition of success is changing.

Maybe success now includes:

Time.

Peace.

Energy.

Being present.

Having choices.

Enjoying what I’ve built.

Being able to say:

I don’t have to do that anymore.

Not because I can’t.

But because I don’t want to.

That’s a very different kind of freedom.

I Don’t Have to Destroy My Life to Change It

And this is important.

Reevaluating your life doesn’t mean you have to blow everything up.

I don’t have to quit everything tomorrow.

I don’t have to sell the house.

Move across the country.

Delete everybody’s number.

Buy a cabin in the woods.

And start growing tomatoes.

Unless that’s your thing.

But it’s not mine.

I can change my life gradually.

I can make different decisions.

I can stop adding things.

I can finish some commitments without replacing them.

I can decide that something I’ve always done doesn’t need to follow me into the next chapter.

I can create more room.

Maybe changing your life isn’t always about making one huge decision.

Sometimes it’s simply deciding:

I’m not going to keep automatically choosing the same things just because they’re familiar.

What Do I Want Now?

That’s the question I’m trying to make more room for.

Not:

What did I say I wanted five years ago?

Not:

What would look impressive?

Not:

What will everybody understand?

Not even:

What should I want?

Just:

What do I want now?

And I don’t think I have the complete answer yet.

Maybe I’m not supposed to.

Maybe this part is less about immediately finding another goal and more about becoming curious again.

What do I want my days to feel like?

What do I want more of?

What do I want less of?

What am I maintaining because I genuinely value it?

What am I maintaining because I’ve become afraid to let it go?

What am I ready to experience now that I couldn’t even imagine when I created the original plan?

Those questions feel more interesting to me than another checklist.

I Can Be Proud of the Life I Built and Still Want Something Different

Maybe that’s the permission I’ve been looking for.

I don’t have to hate my life before I’m allowed to change something about it.

Something doesn’t have to become terrible before I decide I’ve outgrown it.

I don’t have to regret what I chose before I’m allowed to choose again.

And I don’t have to disrespect the woman who worked so hard to get me here.

I can thank her.

I can appreciate her.

I can be proud of her.

And then I can tell her:

I’ll take it from here.

Because she built this life with the information she had then.

I get to live it with the information I have now.

Maybe changing my mind doesn’t mean I wasn’t grateful for what I prayed for.

Maybe it means I lived long enough to discover something else about myself.

And if that’s true, maybe the next chapter doesn’t have to look like the one I originally planned.

Maybe it just needs to look more like me.

The woman I am now gets a vote too.

Therapeia Reflection

Think about something you once desperately wanted that you eventually received.

Do you still want it in the same way?

Are you maintaining it because it still matters to you—or because you worked too hard to imagine choosing differently?

And if you removed everyone else’s expectations for just a moment:

What would you want more of in your life now?

More money?

More time?

More peace?

More adventure?

More connection?

More purpose?

More of yourself?

You don’t have to have the answer today.

But maybe you’re allowed to ask the question.

What do I want now?

That was it.

They called.

Nobody answered.

They went on with their life.

Maybe they called back later.

Maybe you called them when you got home.

Nobody was staring at a screen thinking:

“I KNOW she saw my message.”

Because there was no “Read.”

No “Delivered.”

No little green dot telling everybody:

Oh, she’s online.

And definitely no:

“You were just on Facebook, though.”

Lord.

Technology has given us access to each other in ways I don’t think we fully understand.

And somewhere along the way, having access to someone became an expectation that they should always be available.

Yes, I Saw Your Message

This is probably where I’m going to get in trouble. 😂

Sometimes I see your text.

And I don’t answer.

Not because I’m mad.

Not because I don’t care.

Not because you did anything wrong.

Sometimes I look at the message and think:

I do not have the capacity for this conversation right now.

So I tell myself:

I’ll answer later.

And then later becomes…

Later.

😂

Then I see another message.

“Did you see my text?”

Yes.

Unfortunately, I did.

Now I have two messages to respond to.

Seeing Something and Having Capacity for It Are Two Different Things

This is something I’ve had to learn about myself.

Just because I technically have five minutes doesn’t mean I have five minutes for everything.

Some conversations require more than time.

They require attention.

Patience.

Thought.

Emotional energy.

Sometimes I know that if I answer somebody when I’m exhausted, irritated, overwhelmed, or distracted, they’re not going to get the version of me I want to give them.

So sometimes I wait.

And I think that can be healthy.

But…

You already know Therapeia isn’t going to let me stop there. 😂

Because Sometimes I Need to Call My Damn Friend Back

There’s another side to this.

Sometimes we can get so comfortable saying:

“I’m protecting my peace.”

“I don’t owe anybody access to me.”

“I’ll respond when I have the capacity.”

that we forget relationships require something from us too.

No, everybody is not entitled to unlimited access to you.

But if somebody I love reaches out repeatedly and I repeatedly don’t respond…

Eventually my silence communicates something.

Even if I didn’t mean for it to.

My friend doesn’t live inside my head.

She doesn’t automatically know:

Toccara loves me. She’s just tired.

All she experiences is:

I keep reaching out and she doesn’t answer.

And those are two very different experiences.

Sometimes Love Requires Availability

Not unlimited availability.

Let’s not get crazy.

😂

But some.

Friendship requires presence.

Marriage requires presence.

Parenting requires presence.

Relationships require moments when somebody else’s needs are inconvenient.

That’s part of loving people.

And I think we’ve gotten so comfortable talking about protecting ourselves that sometimes we forget to talk about showing up for each other.

There are times when:

I really don’t have the capacity right now.

is completely true.

And there are other times when I probably need to ask myself:

Do I really not have the capacity—or do I just not feel like being bothered?

Whew.

Because those aren’t always the same thing either.

I Don’t Want Constant Access. But I Don’t Want Disconnection Either.

Maybe that’s what I’m trying to figure out.

I don’t want technology to convince people that because they can reach me at any moment, they’re entitled to me at every moment.

But I also don’t want boundaries to become an excuse for me to stop nurturing the relationships I say matter to me.

There has to be something between:

Everybody gets unlimited access to me

and

Nobody gets anything from me unless it’s completely convenient.

Because relationships rarely operate at either extreme.

Sometimes I need space.

Sometimes somebody I love needs me.

Sometimes I need to say:

“I saw your message. I don’t have the bandwidth to really talk right now, but I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you.”

And sometimes?

I just need to pick up the damn phone.

😂

Maybe Availability Isn’t Proof of Love

Being constantly available doesn’t prove that I care.

And being temporarily unavailable doesn’t prove that I don’t.

But if I value a relationship, I probably need to make sure the person on the other side can actually experience some of the care I feel for them.

Because love that exists only inside my head is difficult for somebody else to feel.

So I’m learning to protect my capacity without disappearing.

To take space without assuming everybody will understand my silence.

To stop believing that every message requires an immediate response.

And also to recognize when “I’ll call them later” has quietly turned into me not showing up.

Maybe the question isn’t:

“Do I owe everybody access to me?”

I already know the answer to that.

No.

Maybe the better question is:

“Am I making enough room for the people I say matter to me?”

Because sometimes protecting my peace means putting the phone down.

And sometimes maintaining the relationships that bring me peace means picking the damn thing up.

🤎

Therapeia Reflection

When someone you care about reaches out and you don’t respond, what’s usually happening?

Are you genuinely overwhelmed?

Protecting your capacity?

Distracted?

Avoiding a conversation?

Or have you simply gotten used to saying:

“I’ll get back to them later”?

And on the other side when somebody doesn’t respond to you how quickly do you interpret their silence as a lack of care?

Maybe we all need a little more room to be unavailable.

And a little more intention about showing up. 🤎

I can work all day without explaining myself.

Nobody asks me why.

I can get up early.

Work late.

Answer emails.

Handle responsibilities.

Take care of everybody.

Clean something.

Plan something.

Work on another project.

Finish one thing and immediately start another.

And somehow all of that feels perfectly acceptable.

But let me sit my ass down in the middle of the day and do absolutely nothing.

Suddenly I feel like I need an attorney.

😂

“Well, I worked last night.”

“I haven’t really slept.”

“I already did what I needed to do today.”

“I’m going to get up in a little while.”

Ma’am.

WHO ARE YOU EXPLAINING THIS TO?

Apparently I Need a Reason to Sit Down

That’s the part I’ve started noticing.

I don’t just rest.

I explain my rest.

Even to myself.

If I’m lying in bed watching television in the middle of the afternoon, my brain will start giving me a list.

You could be cleaning.

You could be working.

You could be answering messages.

You could be writing.

You could be doing something productive.

And sometimes I’m sitting there thinking:

I AM TIRED.

😂

Why isn’t that enough?

Why does exhaustion have to become extreme before rest starts feeling justified?

Why do I have to run myself completely down before I finally say:

Okay. Now you can stop.

When Did Productivity Become the Default?

This is what really got me thinking.

Nobody expects me to justify productivity.

If I tell somebody:

“I’ve been working all day.”

the response is usually something like:

“Girl, you stay busy.”

“You work hard.”

“You’re always doing something.”

And somewhere in there is almost a compliment.

But imagine saying:

“I didn’t do a damn thing today.”

😂

Now we need context.

Was I sick?

Did I have a hard week?

Was I exhausted?

Did something happen?

Why can’t the answer simply be:

Because I wanted to rest?

At some point, doing became normal.

And resting became something I felt like I had to earn.

I Think I Learned to Measure a Good Day by What I Accomplished

Maybe that’s part of it.

Ask me what I did today, and I can tell you whether I think I had a productive day.

I worked.

I handled this.

I finished that.

I checked something off the list.

I got something done.

And when I can point to enough accomplishments, the day somehow feels legitimate.

But what about the days when my body needed something different?

What if the accomplishment was:

I slept.

I slowed down.

I watched a movie.

I didn’t answer anybody.

I sat on my couch and let my brain be quiet for a minute.

Why don’t those things feel like they count?

And Then I Started Thinking About How Much I Work

This part made me laugh at myself.

Because sometimes I will genuinely be exhausted.

Not pretend exhausted.

Not:

“I don’t feel like doing anything today.”

I mean my body is saying:

Girl. Sit. Down.

And somehow my brain is still negotiating.

😂

Maybe I’ll rest after I do this one thing.

Then one thing becomes three.

Three becomes five.

And eventually I’m resting because I physically don’t feel like doing anything else.

That’s not exactly the same as choosing rest.

That’s collapsing.

There is a difference.

And I’m starting to notice how often I’ve waited for my body to force me to stop instead of giving myself permission to stop before I reached that point.

Rest Shouldn’t Require a Crisis

Why do we sometimes wait until something is wrong before we slow down?

We get sick.

We burn out.

We become irritable.

We can’t concentrate.

We’re exhausted.

Our bodies start sending increasingly aggressive emails.

😂

And THEN we say:

“I think I need to rest.”

Baby, your body has been trying to schedule this meeting for three weeks.

You just kept declining the invitation.

Maybe rest doesn’t need to be the emergency response.

Maybe it can be part of how I live.

But Let Me Be Careful With This

Because I don’t want to turn rest into another thing we perform correctly.

I can already see it.

Now we’ve got:

The perfect morning routine.

The perfect self-care routine.

The perfect nighttime routine.

The perfect Sunday reset.

The perfect rest day.

Candles.

Tea.

Journaling.

Meditation.

A matching pajama set.

😂

And now somehow I have to be good at resting too?

Absolutely not.

Sometimes rest is beautiful.

Sometimes it’s taking a trip.

Sometimes it’s getting a massage.

Sometimes it’s reading.

And sometimes rest is lying on the couch watching something ridiculous while eating snacks and ignoring the laundry.

It still counts.

Rest doesn’t have to look productive enough to qualify as rest.

Maybe I’m Not Lazy. Maybe I’m Uncomfortable With Stillness.

That’s another question I’ve had to ask myself.

Because sometimes when I’m doing nothing, I feel restless.

Not physically.

Mentally.

Like I should be moving toward something.

Accomplishing something.

Fixing something.

Planning something.

And I wonder how much of that is because I’ve gotten so used to being needed, busy, productive, and responsible that stillness feels unfamiliar.

Maybe my discomfort doesn’t mean I need to get up.

Maybe sometimes I need to sit there long enough to understand why sitting there bothers me.

Whew.

That’s irritating.

😂

Because I was hoping the answer was just:

“You’re a hard worker.”

No ma’am.

Apparently we’re processing things again.

Rest and Avoidance Aren’t the Same Thing Either

And because this is Therapeia, we’re not going to pretend every day spent lying in bed is automatically self-care.

😂

Sometimes I need rest.

And sometimes I’m avoiding something.

Sometimes I’m restoring myself.

Sometimes I’m procrastinating.

Sometimes I’m listening to my body.

Sometimes I’m hiding from something I don’t want to deal with.

Those things can look very similar from the outside.

Which means I have to know myself well enough to ask:

What do I actually need right now?

Not:

What should I be doing?

Not:

What would make me look productive?

Not even:

What can I justify?

What do I actually need?

Maybe the answer is rest.

Maybe the answer is movement.

Maybe the answer is getting something done so it stops hanging over my head.

But I want the decision to come from awareness instead of guilt.

I Don’t Want to Earn Rest With Exhaustion Anymore

That’s probably the biggest thing I’m learning.

I don’t want exhaustion to be the price I have to pay before I’m allowed to stop.

I don’t want to work until my body forces me into rest and then call that balance.

And I don’t want every quiet moment to become an opportunity to accomplish something else.

There will always be another task.

Another email.

Another project.

Another load of laundry.

Another idea.

Another thing that could be done.

Everything will never be finished.

If I wait until there is nothing left to do before I rest…

I’m never going to rest.

Maybe Rest Isn’t the Reward

Maybe that’s where I’ve had it backward.

Rest isn’t necessarily the reward I receive after I’ve worked hard enough.

It isn’t something I have to unlock.

It isn’t proof that I’ve completed everything.

Maybe rest is simply one of the things my body and mind need in order for me to continue living my life.

And maybe I don’t need a dramatic reason.

I don’t have to be burned out.

I don’t have to be sick.

I don’t have to be falling apart.

I don’t even have to be completely exhausted.

Sometimes:

I want to sit down.

is enough.

I’m still learning that.

Because apparently I can work twelve hours without questioning my character, but sitting on my own damn couch for three hours will have me wondering whether I’ve lost my ambition.

😂

I’m working on it.

Maybe rest isn’t something I should feel guilty about.

Maybe it’s one of the things that allows me to have a life I don’t constantly need to recover from.

And if you need me while I’m figuring that out?

My phone might be on Do Not Disturb.

🤎

Therapeia Reflection

When you finally have time to do nothing, can you actually enjoy it?

Or does your mind immediately start listing everything you should be doing?

What would happen if you stopped asking:

“Have I done enough to deserve rest?”

and started asking:

“What does my body and mind need from me today?”

Because maybe you don’t have to earn the right to sit down.

Maybe being tired of constantly earning it is part of the reason you need to rest in the first place. 🤎

I’ve been thinking about something lately.

I don’t really like showing my face on social media.

And when I actually stopped to think about why, I realized how strange that is.

Because this is my face. 😂

I walk around with it every single day.

I go to work with it. My family sees it. My friends see it. Complete strangers see it when I leave the house.

And somehow, putting that same face on the internet can make me nervous.

Make that make sense.

Apparently, Posting a Picture Changes Everything

I can take a picture and think:

Oh, I look cute.

No problem.

Then I think about posting it.

Suddenly, I’m looking at the picture differently.

Is this flattering?

Do I look tired?

What are people going to think?

Should I use another picture?

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I have to ask myself:

Who the hell are these imaginary people I’m trying to impress?

😂

Most of them don’t know me.

I don’t know them.

We will probably never meet.

Some of them will scroll past my picture in approximately 1.7 seconds while sitting on the toilet.

And I’m over here conducting a full performance evaluation on my face.

That is wild when you really think about it.

Look What the World Has Come To

Social media has given us access to more people than human beings were probably ever meant to have opinions about.

We watch strangers critique other strangers every single day.

Their bodies.

Their faces.

Their clothes.

Their marriages.

Their parenting.

Their houses.

Their careers.

Their weight.

Their hair.

Everything is available for commentary.

And even when the comments aren’t directed at us, I think we absorb some of it.

You can watch somebody post a perfectly normal picture and see hundreds of people find something wrong with her.

And somewhere in the back of your mind, you think:

Well shit. If they’re saying all that about her, what would they say about me?

So before anybody gets the opportunity to reject us, sometimes we start rejecting ourselves.

We edit.

We hide.

We overthink.

We delete.

We decide not to post.

And the crazy part is, sometimes nobody has even said anything yet.

Maybe I’m Not Afraid of Social Media

The more I thought about it, the more I realized:

Maybe I’m not afraid of social media. Maybe I’m uncomfortable being seen.

There’s something vulnerable about being seen when you know you cannot control how people interpret what they see.

I can control what I post.

I cannot control what somebody thinks about it.

I can control what I say.

I cannot control what somebody decides I meant.

And maybe that’s the uncomfortable part.

If I stay hidden, nobody gets the opportunity to judge what they cannot see.

But then I had to ask myself whether hiding was actually what I wanted.

Privacy and Fear Aren’t the Same Thing

Now, I believe in privacy.

Everything does not belong on social media.

Everybody does not need access to me.

And choosing not to show my face doesn’t automatically mean I’m insecure.

Sometimes:

I just don’t want y’all in my business.

😂

That is a perfectly acceptable boundary.

But I’ve started asking myself a different question:

Am I choosing privacy—or am I choosing fear?

Because those aren’t always the same thing.

There’s a difference between:

I don’t want to share this.

and

I want to share this, but I’m scared of what people might think.

That second one makes me stop and think.

Meanwhile, I’m Over Here Writing My Thoughts on the Internet

And this is where the whole thing becomes hilarious.

Because I started writing on Substack. 😂

So apparently I’m comfortable telling strangers what I think about work.

Motherhood.

Friendship.

Boundaries.

Burnout.

Relationships.

My nervous system losing its damn mind while I watch reality television.

I will sit down and write an entire article about something I’ve been thinking about and put it on the internet.

Here. Read my thoughts. Welcome to my brain.

But showing my face?

Whoa.

Let’s not get crazy. 😂

And that contradiction made me think.

Maybe there are different ways of allowing ourselves to be seen.

Maybe Being Seen Requires a Different Kind of Confidence

I used to think confidence meant getting to a point where you just didn’t care what anybody thought.

I’m not sure I believe that anymore.

I’m human.

Of course I care sometimes.

Most of us do.

Maybe confidence isn’t:

I don’t care what anybody thinks about me.

Maybe it’s:

I care, but their opinion doesn’t get to make every decision for me.

That’s different.

Because I can decide that I don’t want my face all over social media and still show up.

I can write.

I can create.

I can share my thoughts.

I can have conversations.

I can let people know me without giving them access to every part of me.

Being authentic doesn’t require being completely accessible.

Whew.

I think I needed that one myself.

I Don’t Want to Reject Myself First

What I don’t want is to spend my life rejecting myself before anybody else gets the opportunity.

I don’t want to decide:

They probably won’t like this.

before I’ve even shared it.

I don’t want to decide:

They’re probably going to judge me.

before anybody has said a word.

And I definitely don’t want people I’ve never met—and probably never will—to have more influence over how I see myself than I do.

Because when you really think about it…

That’s a hell of a lot of power to give a stranger.

Especially an imaginary one.

😂

So Maybe I’ll Share More

I’m not about to turn into somebody who documents every moment of her life.

Let’s not get carried away. 😂

I may still choose not to show my face.

I may still choose privacy.

And I will definitely continue believing that everybody doesn’t need access to everything.

But I want to become more aware of why I’m hiding when I hide.

Because I don’t want fear disguising itself as privacy.

And I don’t want insecurity making decisions and calling itself a boundary.

So maybe I’ll post more.

Maybe I’ll write more.

Maybe I’ll share more of myself in ways that still feel like me.

Not because I suddenly became fearless.

Not because I stopped caring what anybody thinks.

And definitely not because I owe the internet access to me.

But because I’m tired of asking imaginary people for permission to be myself.

I don’t have to show everything to be real.

I just don’t want fear deciding what parts of me are allowed to be seen.

🤎

Therapeia Reflection

Have you ever stopped yourself from posting, speaking, creating, wearing something, trying something, or simply showing up because you were worried about what other people might think?

And if so:

Who am I actually afraid of being judged by?

People I love?

People I respect?

Or people I’ve never met and probably never will?

Because maybe the question isn’t:

“What if they don’t like me?”

Maybe it’s:

“How much of myself am I willing to hide just to make sure I never find out?”

🤎 Therapeia🤎

I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s.

And if you grew up around that time, you probably already know where this is going. 😂

Children did not go back and forth with adults.

You didn’t have a whole lot of explaining to do.

You didn’t always get to tell an adult how something made you feel.

And you definitely weren’t about to stand there giving a five-minute explanation about why you disagreed with something your mama said.

There was a very clear line between adult and child.

Adults talked.

Children listened.

And then I had daughters.

Lord. 😂

These Girls Have Words

My daughters communicate.

And I mean communicate.

They are intelligent.

Observant.

Self-aware.

And they know how to explain exactly what they are thinking and feeling.

There have been times when I’ve said:

“Don’t disrespect me.”

And they’ve responded:

“Mom, I’m not disrespecting you. I’m telling you how the situation made me feel.”

Excuse me?

😂

Because the mother in me immediately wants to say:

“I’m the mama.”

And technically…I am.

But sometimes after the conversation is over and I’ve had time to think about it, I realize:

They weren’t actually being disrespectful.

They were disagreeing with me.

They were explaining themselves.

They were communicating.

And somewhere along the way, I had to start asking myself:

When did I learn that disagreement from a child automatically meant disrespect?

Whew.

They Give Me Pushback. And Sometimes I Need It.

Let me be clear.

These are still my children.

😂

Everything is not a negotiation.

There are rules.

There are expectations.

There are decisions that I make because I am their mother.

But being the parent doesn’t automatically mean I’m the only person in the house with a valid perspective.

That has been one of the biggest lessons my daughters have taught me.

Sometimes they challenge something I say.

Sometimes they ask why.

Sometimes they tell me how one of my decisions affected them.

And there was a time when my first reaction was:

Why are you questioning me?

Now I’m learning to ask:

What are they actually trying to tell me?

Those are two very different questions.

If I’m Being Truthful, They Intimidated Me a Little

This might be one of the hardest parts for me to admit.

There was a time when my daughters intimidated me a little.

Not because I was afraid of my children.

But because they are smart as hell.

😂

They notice things.

They ask questions.

They remember conversations.

They connect things.

And they know how to explain themselves.

There were moments when I wondered if they were going to realize:

Mom doesn’t know everything.

Because when I was growing up, adults seemed like…adults.

They had answers.

They made decisions.

And whether they actually knew what they were doing or not, they didn’t always let us know that.

Then I became the adult.

And I discovered something:

Oh. Y’all didn’t know what the hell y’all were doing either.

😂😂😂

You were figuring it out too!

That was a revelation.

Because my daughters have seen me say:

“I don’t know.”

They’ve seen me change my mind.

They’ve heard me say:

“I misunderstood you.”

And yes…

They have even heard me say:

“You were right.”

That one will humble you as a parent. 😂

There was a time when I worried that admitting those things would somehow make me look less like their mother.

Now I wonder if it actually makes me a better one.

My Sons Were Different

I have sons too.

And I learned things from raising them.

Every child teaches you something.

But my sons were easier for me to parent.

Then came these girls.

😂

And I have said before:

“My sons were easy. Those girls are showing me how to parent.”

Because my daughters challenge parts of me that I didn’t even realize needed challenging.

They make me think about how I communicate.

How I listen.

How I define respect.

How quickly I become defensive.

And whether I’m responding to what they’re actually doing or to what I was taught children were supposed to do.

That’s different.

I’m Learning That Connection Doesn’t Require Similarity

Another thing I’ve had to learn is that my daughters and I are just…different.

And for a while, I think I interpreted those differences as difficulty connecting.

I love R&B.

These girls will turn on classic rock like somebody’s 52-year-old uncle has taken over the Bluetooth.

😂

I’m sitting there like:

Who raised y’all?

Apparently, me.

But maybe connection doesn’t require us to like the same things.

Maybe I don’t have to love their music.

Maybe I can ask:

“What do you like about it?”

Maybe I don’t have to understand every interest immediately.

Maybe I can become curious about the people they’re becoming.

I spent so much time wondering why it was sometimes difficult for me to connect with them that I almost missed the fact that they were showing me how.

Listen.

Ask.

Be curious.

Let them teach me who they are instead of assuming they’re supposed to become versions of me.

Some of What I Call “Different” Might Actually Be Growth

This is the part that really made me think.

Some of what makes my daughters different from me may be evidence that I gave them room to become people I never had the opportunity to be.

They can explain how they feel.

They can disagree.

They can ask questions.

They can tell me when something doesn’t sit right with them.

And instead of immediately seeing those things as problems, I’m starting to wonder:

Maybe some of the ways my children are different from me are evidence of growth in our family.

Because what if I raised children who feel safe enough to use their voices?

What if they don’t automatically believe that loving someone means staying silent?

What if they know that they can respect me and still have a different opinion?

What if they understand that their feelings matter?

Maybe that’s not disrespect.

Maybe that’s something worth protecting.

I Don’t Want to Silence Something in Them Just Because It Was Silenced in Me

That might be the biggest lesson.

Sometimes parenting makes you confront things from your own childhood that you didn’t even realize you were carrying.

There are things I wasn’t encouraged to say.

Questions I probably wouldn’t have asked.

Ways of communicating that would have been interpreted differently when I was growing up.

And now I have children who are doing those things naturally.

I have a choice.

I can teach them to become quieter because quiet feels more familiar to me.

Or I can learn how to parent children who have voices.

That doesn’t mean they get to say whatever they want however they want.

Respect still matters.

Tone matters.

Accountability matters.

But disagreement and disrespect aren’t automatically the same thing.

And maybe part of being their mother is learning not to silence something in them simply because it was silenced in me.

Authority and Listening Can Exist in the Same House

I don’t have to stop being their mother in order to listen to them.

I don’t have to agree with everything they say.

And they don’t have to agree with everything I say.

There are going to be moments when my answer is still:

No.

There are going to be decisions they don’t like.

There are going to be rules they think are ridiculous.

That’s parenting.

But I can still listen.

I can still explain when appropriate.

I can still admit when I handled something wrong.

I can still apologize.

I can still change my mind.

Authority and listening can exist in the same house.

I’m learning that.

They’re Still Teaching Me

I used to think being a good mother meant having the answers.

Teaching the lessons.

Giving the advice.

Preparing my children for the world.

And yes, that’s part of it.

But motherhood has turned out to be much more reciprocal than I expected.

My children are learning from me.

And I am learning from them.

Especially those girls.

😂

They are teaching me patience.

They’re teaching me to listen differently.

They’re teaching me that connection doesn’t require similarity.

They’re teaching me that respect doesn’t require silence.

They’re teaching me that sometimes the parent needs to grow too.

And they’re teaching me that I don’t have to raise them exactly the way I was raised in order to raise them well.

Maybe being a good mother was never about having all the answers.

Maybe part of it is raising children who feel safe enough to ask me the questions.

And maybe part of motherhood is being humble enough to admit:

Sometimes my children are teaching me too.

🤎

Therapeia Reflection

What did respect look like in the house where you grew up?

Were you allowed to disagree with adults?

Explain yourself?

Say when something hurt you?

Ask why?

And now that you’re an adult—especially if you’re raising children—have you ever caught yourself calling something “disrespect” simply because it was something you weren’t allowed to say?

Because sometimes our children aren’t just learning from us.

Sometimes they’re showing us what we’re still learning, too. 🤎

There is something incredibly humbling about being a therapist and realizing that you are currently doing the exact thing you would probably encourage a client to reconsider.

I know about boundaries.

I know about burnout.

I know about rest.

I know about emotional regulation.

I know about communication.

I know what happens when we ignore what our bodies are telling us.

I can sit with someone, listen to what they’re experiencing, help them recognize a pattern, and ask:

“What do you think you need right now?”

Then somehow I get into my own life and…

Girl.

😂

Apparently the clinical knowledge did not come with immunity.

I Can Recognize the Pattern While I’m Still in the Damn Pattern

That’s probably one of the funniest parts about being a therapist.

Sometimes I know exactly what I’m doing.

I know I’m overthinking.

Still overthinking.

I know I need to rest.

Still doing something.

I know I have too much on my plate.

Adds something else to the plate.

I know I need to give myself a minute before responding.

Responds anyway.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, Therapist Me is standing there with her clipboard looking at Regular Me like:

“Interesting choice.”

😂

Because knowing something intellectually and being able to apply it when you’re tired, emotional, irritated, worried, overwhelmed, or personally invested are two completely different experiences.

Therapists Don’t Graduate From Being Human

I think sometimes people assume therapists have mastered everything we talk about.

We haven’t.

At least I haven’t.

I don’t wake up every morning emotionally regulated, perfectly rested, appropriately boundaried, hydrated, moisturized, and ready to use an “I statement.”

Sometimes I wake up irritated.

Sometimes I procrastinate.

Sometimes I overthink something that probably didn’t deserve 45 minutes of analysis.

Sometimes I know I need a break and still convince myself I can squeeze in one more thing.

Sometimes I say yes and later realize I didn’t really have the capacity.

Sometimes I know exactly what the healthy coping skill is…

and I simply do not feel like doing that shit right now.

😂

That doesn’t mean the coping skill doesn’t work.

It means I’m human.

And Being a Therapist Can Make It Even Funnier

Because there’s always that little therapist voice in the background.

Regular Me:

“I’m just going to ignore this and hope it goes away.”

Therapist Me:

“And how has that strategy worked for you historically?”

Regular Me:

Girl, shut up.

😂

Or I’ll catch myself getting worked up about something and realize:

Oh.

I’m catastrophizing.

Wonderful.

Thank you, education.

Still irritated though.

Knowing the name of something doesn’t automatically make the feeling disappear.

Sometimes We Know Better Before We Can Do Better

We’ve all heard:

“When you know better, you do better.”

And I understand the idea.

But I think real life is a little messier than that.

Sometimes you know better…

and then you do the same damn thing again.

Sometimes you recognize the pattern halfway through.

Sometimes you recognize it afterward.

Sometimes you recognize it WHILE you’re doing it and still aren’t ready to choose differently.

That’s uncomfortable to admit.

Especially when you’re somebody who helps other people recognize their patterns.

But maybe growth isn’t:

I learned this once, therefore I will never struggle with it again.

Maybe growth sometimes looks like:

Damn. I caught it faster this time.

Or:

I handled that differently than I would’ve two years ago.

Or even:

I did the same thing again, but now I understand why I keep doing it.

That’s still information.

The Therapist Chair Is Different When You’re Sitting on the Other Side

It’s easier to see options when you’re not emotionally inside the situation.

That’s part of what makes therapy helpful.

A therapist can sit outside the chaos and help someone slow everything down.

But when it’s your marriage…

Your children.

Your career.

Your money.

Your friendship.

Your disappointment.

Your fear.

Your exhaustion.

Your future.

Suddenly those beautifully organized coping skills don’t always feel quite so beautifully organized.

Because now there are feelings attached.

History attached.

Consequences attached.

And sometimes a little:

“But I don’t WANT to do the healthy thing.”

😂

Knowing the Skill Isn’t the Same as Having the Capacity to Use It

This is something I’ve become much more aware of.

Sometimes we assume that because somebody knows what to do, they should automatically be able to do it.

But knowledge and capacity aren’t the same thing.

You can know you need rest while feeling like you can’t slow down.

You can know you need a difficult conversation while not feeling ready to have it.

You can understand boundaries and still struggle when someone you love is disappointed.

You can understand emotional regulation and still have moments when your emotions get the first word.

Knowing gives us information.

It doesn’t erase the human part.

I Think This Has Made Me a Better Therapist

Not because I have all the answers.

Actually, probably because I don’t.

Being reminded of my own humanity keeps me from sitting across from somebody acting like change is simple.

Sometimes people already know what they “should” do.

They don’t need another person telling them:

“Well, you know better.”

Maybe the better question is:

What’s making it difficult to do what you already know?

Now we’re having a different conversation.

Because there may be fear.

Exhaustion.

Grief.

Money.

Family.

History.

Habit.

Hope.

Love.

Or simply the fact that changing something you’ve done for years is hard.

So No, I Don’t Have My Shit Together All the Time

I’m a therapist.

And I’m also a wife.

A mother.

A professional.

A woman with responsibilities.

A person with feelings.

A person who sometimes gets tired.

A person who occasionally knows exactly what she needs to do and still needs a minute before she actually does it.

Those things can exist together.

Being a mental health professional doesn’t mean I have reached some final level of emotional enlightenment where nothing bothers me anymore.

And thank God.

Because I don’t think I’d want to sit across from a therapist who had forgotten what it feels like to be human.

Maybe That’s the Point

Maybe the goal was never to become so emotionally healthy that I stopped having problems.

Maybe the goal is to become self-aware enough to recognize what’s happening.

Compassionate enough not to shame myself for it.

Curious enough to understand it.

And willing enough to eventually do something with what I know.

Sometimes I will recognize the pattern before it happens.

Sometimes during.

Sometimes afterward.

And sometimes Therapist Me is just going to have to sit quietly in the corner while Regular Me finishes being irritated.

😂

Then we’ll process it.

THERAPEIA REFLECTION

Have you ever known exactly what you needed to do…

and still didn’t do it?

Maybe you knew you needed to rest.

Have the conversation.

Set the boundary.

Stop overthinking.

Ask for help.

Walk away.

Or simply give yourself a minute.

What makes it difficult to use the tools you already know when you’re the one actually living through it?

Because knowing better and being human can exist at the same time. 🤎

My friends invite me places.

And a lot of times, I don’t go.

Not because I don’t love them.

Not because I don’t enjoy being around them.

Not because anything happened between us.

Usually, I’m working.

Or I’m tired.

Or I have something else going on.

Or I convince myself that I’ll just catch the next one.

And most of the time, there is another invitation.

Another dinner.

Another outing.

Another birthday.

Another little gathering.

Another chance to say:

“Girl, I’m tired. I’ll catch the next one.”

But lately I’ve been thinking about something that makes me a little uncomfortable.

How many “next ones” do I think I’m guaranteed?

Because I’ve spent a lot of time assuming there will always be another opportunity.

Another weekend.

Another dinner.

Another moment.

Another chance to show up.

And life does not actually promise us that.

I’ve Been Treating Friendship Like Something I Can Reschedule

That realization hit me harder than I expected.

I kept treating time with my friends like something I could reschedule.

Work couldn’t wait.

Responsibilities couldn’t wait.

The things on my to-do list couldn’t wait.

But somehow the people I love could.

I told myself:

I’ll see them next time.

And technically, sometimes I did.

But sometimes I’d see pictures afterward.

Everybody laughing.

Everybody dressed up.

Some ridiculous moment I already know would have had me crying laughing if I had been there.

And I’d think:

Damn. I could’ve been there.

That’s the part I don’t think we talk about enough.

Sometimes you don’t realize you missed a memory until it has already become one.

And some memories don’t offer a make-up date.

The People Who Keep Inviting You Are Showing Up Too

There’s another part of this that I’ve been thinking about.

My friends keep inviting me.

And that means something.

They are making space for me in their lives.

They’re thinking:

Toccara would enjoy this.

Let me invite her.

I want her here.

And when somebody continues inviting you even though you keep saying no, it’s easy to assume the invitation will just keep coming.

But eventually people may stop asking.

Not because they’re angry.

Not because the friendship is over.

They may simply start believing:

She’s always busy.

She probably can’t come.

No need to bother her.

And I don’t ever want the people I love to interpret my absence as a lack of love.

Because that isn’t what it is.

But I also have to acknowledge something:

People can’t always feel love that never shows up.

Whew.

That one got me.

I’ve Put Work First More Times Than I Want to Admit

I’m a worker.

I always have been.

I’m responsible.

I have goals.

I have things I want for myself and my family.

And I don’t regret being ambitious.

But I’m learning that ambition can become very expensive when the thing you start paying with is time.

There have been times when work got the best version of me.

My energy.

My attention.

My availability.

And then everybody else got:

“I’m tired.”

“Maybe next time.”

“I’ll catch y’all later.”

I don’t want to keep doing that.

Not because work doesn’t matter.

It does.

But the people I’m working so hard for and the people I care about matter too.

And I don’t want to wake up one day with a long résumé and a short list of memories.

Friendship Needs Presence Too

I think sometimes we believe friendship survives simply because the love is there.

And sometimes it does.

Real friendships can go through busy seasons.

We can go weeks or months without seeing each other and still pick up where we left off.

But loving somebody and being present in their life are still two different things.

Friendship needs memories.

Inside jokes.

Random dinners.

Birthday celebrations.

Conversations that start serious and somehow end with everybody laughing.

Moments that don’t look important while they’re happening but become important later.

And I’m realizing that I want more of those.

I don’t want my friends to only know that I love them.

I want them to have memories of me being there.

This Isn’t About Saying Yes to Everything

And because I write about boundaries, let me be very clear.

😂

This is not me deciding that I have to attend every dinner, every event, every birthday, every brunch, and every invitation for the rest of my life.

Absolutely not.

Sometimes I really am tired.

Sometimes I genuinely need rest.

Sometimes I have to work.

Sometimes saying no is the right decision.

The problem isn’t saying no.

The problem is when “next time” becomes my automatic answer without me stopping to think about what I might actually be choosing.

Am I saying no because I genuinely need rest?

Or because work has become my default priority?

Am I protecting my energy?

Or am I so accustomed to being unavailable that I don’t even consider saying yes anymore?

Those are different questions.

And lately, I’ve been asking them.

I Don’t Want Regret to Teach Me This Lesson

Sometimes we don’t cherish time until something happens that reminds us how fragile it is.

A friendship changes.

Someone moves.

Life gets busier.

People get sick.

Families change.

Or there simply isn’t another invitation.

I don’t want to wait for something painful to happen before I realize:

I should’ve gone.

I should’ve taken the picture.

Stayed for dessert.

Laughed a little longer.

Put my phone down.

Let the work wait until tomorrow.

I’ve spent so much of my life thinking about what needs to get done.

I want to spend more time thinking about who I want beside me while I’m living it.

So Maybe I Won’t Catch the Next One

Maybe sometimes I need to catch this one.

This dinner.

This birthday.

This random Saturday.

This invitation.

This moment.

Because there may absolutely be another one.

And I hope there is.

But I don’t want to keep building my relationships around the assumption that there always will be.

I’m learning that time with people I love deserves to be treated like something valuable too.

Not something I’ll fit in after everything else is finished.

Because everything else is never finished.

There will always be work.

There will always be responsibilities.

There will always be something that needs my attention.

But there won’t always be this exact moment with these exact people.

And I think I’m finally starting to understand that.

So the next time my friends text:

“You coming?”

Maybe my first thought doesn’t have to be:

I’ll catch the next one.

Maybe sometimes the answer can simply be:

Yeah. I’ll be there.

🤎

Therapeia Reflection

How often do you tell the people you love:

“Next time”?

And what usually gets your yes instead?

Work?

Exhaustion?

Responsibilities?

Habit?

Sometimes saying no is exactly what we need.

But every once in a while, it may be worth asking:

Am I protecting my time…or am I missing my life?

Girl, let’s be honest.

I love reality TV.

It is absolutely one of my guilty pleasures.

I know some of these shows don’t exactly paint women in the best light. I know they can be messy, loud, dramatic, and sometimes downright ridiculous.

And yet…

I keep watching.

The funny part is that my body seems to have a completely different opinion about my entertainment choices.

As soon as an argument starts getting heated, I can literally feel myself getting tense.

My shoulders tighten. My jaw clenches. I lean forward. Somebody stands up on the screen, and apparently I need to sit up too.

Then somebody says, “Hold on, because what you’re NOT gonna do—”

And my nervous system is like:

OH SHIT. WE’RE INVOLVED NOW.

Meanwhile, I am sitting safely in my own damn house.

Nobody is arguing with me.

But somehow my body has entered the group chat.

I Have My Girl. And Then I Have the Villain.

Every reality show has somebody I like.

That’s my girl.

I understand her. I defend her. She might be a little messy, but when she does something questionable, somehow I can always find the context.

Well, see, what happened was…

Then there’s the villain.

I cannot stand her.

Sometimes she hasn’t even done anything yet. She just walks into the scene and I’m already irritated.

Here she go.

But THIS is where it gets crazy.

The villain gets into it with somebody I dislike even more.

And suddenly…

Well…I don’t like her, but she ain’t wrong about THAT.

Now I’m rooting for somebody I couldn’t stand 20 minutes ago.

Or somebody I thought was the bully gets into it with an even bigger bully, gets her ass handed to her, and suddenly I’m feeling bad for her.

Wait a damn minute.

Twenty minutes ago I hated this woman.

Now I’m defending her?!

Reality TV will have you switching teams like you have money riding on the reunion.

And Apparently My Favorite Can Do No Wrong

Well…not no wrong.

But I have noticed something about myself.

Sometimes my favorite person can do the exact same thing I criticized somebody else for doing.

When the villain does it:

“See! THAT’S why I don’t like her.”

When my girl does it:

“Okay, but y’all have to understand where she was coming from…”

😂

And that’s when my guilty pleasure starts turning into a whole mental-health conversation.

Because how much does liking someone affect how we interpret their behavior?

We do this outside of television too.

Once we decide someone is a good person, we may give them more grace.

Once we decide somebody is the problem, everything they do can start looking like additional proof that we were right about them.

And sometimes new information really should change our opinion.

Maybe the person we thought was the villain isn’t quite as terrible as we thought.

Maybe our favorite isn’t always right.

Maybe two people can both be wrong.

Maybe somebody can be wrong in one situation and completely right in another.

And maybe I need to stop acting like I personally know these women.

But that’s another conversation.

Meanwhile, My Body Is Still Watching the Fight

This is the part that fascinates me.

My brain knows I’m watching television.

But my body can still respond to the conflict I’m watching.

When voices get louder, tension starts building, somebody starts pacing, or I can tell an argument is about to explode, I notice myself physically reacting.

And maybe that’s part of what makes reality television so entertaining.

There’s anticipation.

Suspense.

Anger.

Secondhand embarrassment.

Vindication.

Shock.

And occasionally:

“GIRL, WALK AWAY!”

All while I am sitting on my couch eating snacks.

Then the Episode Ends

Everybody has stormed off.

Somebody’s wig may or may not still be where it started.

I’m sitting in my house emotionally exhausted from an argument that had absolutely nothing to do with me.

And what do I do?

Click “Next Episode.”

Apparently this is what I call relaxing.

And no, this article does not end with me announcing that I’m giving up reality TV.

Let’s not get ridiculous.

But it has made me think about how important it is to notice how the things we consume make us feel.

Not everything we notice about ourselves has to immediately become something we need to fix.

Sometimes self-awareness can simply be:

“Huh. That’s interesting.”

I can enjoy reality TV and recognize that my body reacts to the conflict.

I can have a favorite and still notice when I’m giving her a pass.

I can dislike somebody and still admit when she’s right.

I can change my opinion when I get new information.

And I can laugh at the fact that people I’ve never met have me sitting in my own living room choosing sides in an argument they probably filmed months ago.

Maybe that’s part of being human.

We watch.

We judge.

We connect.

We pick sides.

We change our minds.

And sometimes we learn a little something about ourselves while watching somebody else lose theirs.

Now excuse me.

I have another episode to watch.

And apparently my nervous system has plans too.

THERAPEIA REFLECTION

When you watch reality TV, who do you become—the defender, the judge, the peacemaker, the commentator, or the person yelling “Girl, WALK AWAY!” at the television?

And have you ever caught yourself giving your favorite person grace for the exact same behavior you criticized in the villain?

Because I know I cannot be the only one. 😂🤎

Sometimes I sit my ass on social media and watch everybody else living. 😂

They’re at dinner. They’re traveling. They’re celebrating birthdays. They’re out with friends. They’re doing all the shit I keep saying I’m going to do.

And sometimes I get irritated.

I think, I work all the damn time. I should be able to afford to go out and do what I want to do.

Then I had to admit something to myself.

I can.

Money isn’t always what’s keeping me from going.

Sometimes I’m just too damn tired to enjoy what I’ve worked so hard to afford.

And that’s on me.

I Keep Saying Yes to a Life I Don’t Have Time to Live

Here’s something I’ve noticed about myself.

I say yes to things I genuinely want to do.

That’s important because I’m not sitting around agreeing to a bunch of shit I don’t want to do. 😂

I really do want to go.

I want to spend time with my parents. They’re getting older, and that matters to me.

I want to spend time with my children.

I want time with my husband.

I want to see my friends.

I want to continue my education. I have professional goals. I have business ideas I want to bring to life. I have things I’m building that genuinely excite me.

I want all of it.

The problem is that everybody and everything is competing for the same hours.

And I’ve been handling that by saying yes first and trying to figure out where the time is going to come from later.

Sometimes the time never comes.

My Friends Already Know My Ass Ain’t Coming 😂

My friends have made it a running joke.

I’ll say, “I’m coming.”

And everybody already knows:

She ain’t coming.

When I actually show up, everybody acts surprised. 😂

And I laugh too because it is funny.

But there’s something underneath that joke that I’ve been thinking about.

I really do mean it when I say I’m coming.

I’m not intentionally blowing anybody off. In that moment, I genuinely believe I’m going to find the time and energy.

Then the day comes.

And my ass can’t do the shit I said I was going to do.

I even have a friend who works a lot like I do. We talk all the time. We understand each other’s exhaustion. We keep saying we’re going to get together.

And we barely see each other.

It’s amazing how months can pass while two people who genuinely care about each other keep saying, “We need to get together.”

My Days Off Have Become Recovery Days

The other day I was off.

I asked my son to get me something to eat, and my husband basically told him not to get it because I wasn’t going to eat it.

I said, “Yes I am. Go get my food. I’m just going to lie down for a little while.”

A little while turned into 6:00 the next morning.

My husband told me he tried to wake me up over and over.

I don’t remember any of it.

And that made me think about what being “off” actually looks like for me.

Sometimes my days off aren’t really days I’m living.

They’re days I’m recovering enough to go back to work.

There are weekends when my husband and I ride around running errands and I stay in the car because I’m too tired to go inside.

Sometimes I fall asleep while he’s driving.

Sometimes I tell him I’m staying home altogether.

And I get right back in the bed.

Providing Isn’t the Same as Being Present

This part is a little harder to admit.

I like being able to provide.

I can buy the things. I can send the money. I can make sure everybody has what they need—and probably some shit they don’t need too. 😂

And if I’m being truthful, sometimes being able to give financially makes me feel a little better about the time I haven’t been able to give.

But I’ve been asking myself whether I’ve sometimes tried to compensate for my absence with my ability to provide.

Because my children can appreciate what I give them and still want more of me.

My husband can appreciate what I do and still want time with me.

My parents can understand that I’m working and still want to see me.

My friends can understand that I’m exhausted and still miss their friend.

Those things can all be true at the same time.

And that doesn’t mean providing doesn’t matter.

It means presence matters too.

Some Things Have Become Non-Negotiable

There is one thing I protect.

Every Friday or Saturday, depending on what’s going on, my husband, my daughters and I go to the movies.

That’s our thing.

And when I tell you I have sat in that theater fighting for my damn life trying to stay awake… 😂

Baby.

Eyes heavy. Body tired. Probably questioning every decision that led me to that reclining movie seat.

But I’m there.

Because afterward we get in the car and talk about the movie.

And I love that.

It’s one of my non-negotiables.

And maybe that’s part of what I’m starting to understand.

I don’t have to be available for everything. But I do need to decide what deserves protected time before work and exhaustion take whatever is left.

I Can Afford to Go. I’m Just Too Damn Tired.

That’s why scrolling social media has been hitting me differently lately.

I see people traveling.

Going to dinner.

Going to concerts.

Celebrating.

Just…living.

And sometimes I think:

Damn. I work too hard not to be doing this.

But that’s not completely fair.

Because there are things I could afford to do.

The bigger question is whether I’ve created enough space to do them.

Financial freedom without time freedom is an interesting thing.

You can finally afford the dinner and be too exhausted to get dressed for it.

You can afford the trip and feel like you don’t have enough days to take it.

You can work hard to create opportunities for your family while simultaneously having less energy to experience those opportunities with them.

That’s the contradiction I’ve been sitting with.

I’m Building a Life I Don’t Want to Be Too Tired to Enjoy

I don’t want to stop being ambitious.

I don’t want to stop building.

I don’t want to stop working toward the things I want.

And I’m definitely not about to write one of those dramatic declarations where tomorrow morning I wake up, quit everything, start meditating at sunrise and suddenly have perfect work-life balance. 😂

That’s not where I am.

I’m still figuring this shit out.

And the irony is not lost on me that I’m sitting here working on an article about how much I work. 😂

Apparently even my self-reflection needed a damn project attached to it.

So clearly, I haven’t mastered this.

But maybe that’s why I’m writing about it now instead of waiting until I have some perfectly packaged solution.

I’m noticing it.

I’m questioning it.

And I’m trying to figure out what I actually want my life to look like—not just what I want to accomplish.

Because being able to provide for the people I love matters deeply to me.

So does being there to enjoy them.

I started working this hard because I wanted to give my family more. I just didn’t realize how easy it would be to give work so much of me that the people I was doing it for started getting what was left.

And I don’t say that to beat myself up.

I say it because I’m paying attention now.

Maybe I don’t need to stop wanting more.

Maybe I need to stop believing I can say yes to everything I want at the same time.

Maybe some things need to become non-negotiable.

Maybe some things need to wait.

Maybe some opportunities aren’t bad opportunities—they’re just opportunities I don’t have capacity for right now.

And maybe rest can’t continue being something I do only after my body decides it’s done negotiating with me.

I’m still working out what that looks like.

But I know I don’t want to spend the next several years building a beautiful life only to look up and realize I was too tired to experience most of it.

So lately I’ve been asking myself a different question.

Not “Can I afford it?”

Not “Can I fit one more thing in?”

Not even “Can I make it work?”

I’m asking:

Do I have enough of myself left to actually live the life I’m working this hard to create?

And maybe that’s a question some of us need to ask before we say yes to one more damn thing. 🤎

Have you ever worked somewhere where you spent almost as much energy navigating the system as you did doing the job you were hired to do?

I have.

And lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a job that provides stability while working in an environment that doesn’t always feel stable.

People love to tell you, “If the environment is toxic, just leave.”

Okay…but who is paying these people’s bills? 😂

Because sometimes leaving immediately isn’t realistic. Sometimes the pay is good. Sometimes the schedule works. Sometimes you have a family, a mortgage, tuition, groceries, car notes, and a whole life that doesn’t disappear because your workplace is getting on your damn nerves.

So maybe the question isn’t always, “Why don’t you just leave?”

Maybe the question is:

How do you stay without letting the place consume you?

When You Start Learning the Unwritten Rules

Every workplace has an organizational chart.

And then there’s the other organizational chart.

The one nobody gives you during orientation.

You learn that one by paying attention.

Who actually has influence? Who can question something without consequences? Who has relationships with whom? Whose concerns are taken seriously? Who gets access to information? Which rules seem consistent—and which ones somehow depend on who is involved?

When you’re new, you’re not only learning your job.

You’re learning the culture.

And sometimes you realize pretty quickly that dysfunction has been happening for so long that people don’t even recognize it as dysfunction anymore.

It’s just “how things are around here.”

When Asking a Question Feels Like a Risk

I ask questions.

Not because I’m trying to challenge somebody’s authority, but because I want to understand what I’m being asked to do and why I’m doing it.

If we’re collecting information, what are we using it for?

If we’re adding another process, is something else already capturing that information?

Is this helping us understand barriers and improve the work—or are we just creating more work?

Those seem like reasonable questions to me.

But I’m learning that in some workplaces, asking a thoughtful question can accidentally expose the fact that nobody has fully thought through the answer.

And that puts employees in an interesting position.

Because if you’re someone who naturally sees problems and solutions, you can quickly find yourself doing more than your actual job.

Someone close to me recently reminded me of something I needed to hear:

Stop giving away all of your solutions.

Whew. 😂

There’s a difference between asking enough questions to do my job well and becoming an unpaid consultant for organizational dysfunction.

I see the problem. That doesn’t automatically make me responsible for solving the problem.

That one is going to take some practice for me.

When Coworkers Bond Over Dysfunction

Another thing I’ve noticed is how quickly people can bond through shared workplace dysfunction.

Everybody knows what isn’t working.

Everybody talks about what isn’t working.

Everybody has a story.

And sometimes those conversations are validating. It feels good to realize, Okay, I’m not imagining this.

But there’s another side to it.

When everyone talks to each other but nobody feels comfortable bringing concerns upward, the venting can become its own cycle.

We talk.

We get frustrated.

We laugh about the ridiculous shit.

Then everybody goes back to work and the system stays exactly the same.

That makes me wonder:

When does venting help us cope, and when does it just help us tolerate something that needs to change?

I don’t know that I have the answer yet.

When There Is a Hierarchy Nobody Wants to Admit Exists

Hierarchy doesn’t always show up in job descriptions.

Sometimes you see it in whose time is protected.

Whose workspace matters.

Whose responsibilities get pushed onto someone else.

Whose title carries more weight.

Whose concerns receive immediate attention.

And whose inconvenience is simply expected.

One isolated incident may mean absolutely nothing.

But patterns tell stories.

And when employees repeatedly feel like their discipline, role, or expertise is treated as less important than someone else’s, that starts affecting more than workflow.

It affects morale.

Representation Doesn’t Automatically Mean Healthy Leadership

One thing that made me think even more deeply about this experience was seeing Black women represented throughout leadership.

As a Black woman and a professional, I want to see us in those rooms. I want to see us leading, making decisions, and occupying positions we haven’t always had access to.

But I’ve also had to sit with something uncomfortable:

Representation by itself doesn’t guarantee healthy leadership.

We can celebrate seeing people who look like us in positions of power and still expect accountability, consistency, professionalism, and good leadership.

Those two things don’t cancel each other out.

And maybe that’s part of a conversation we don’t have enough.

Sometimes we become hesitant to critique leadership when the people leading look like us because we know how hard it was for them to get there.

But wanting us in the room doesn’t mean we stop expecting the room to be run well.

When Dysfunction Becomes Part of Your Workload

This is the part we don’t always count.

The mental calculation.

Should I say something?

Should I let that go?

Do I need to document this?

Was that actually a problem, or am I overthinking it?

If I ask this question, how will it be received?

Is this my responsibility?

Should I offer the solution I already see?

Who can I trust?

That is work too.

Nobody puts it on your job description, but navigating dysfunction takes emotional and mental energy.

And if you aren’t careful, you’ll finish your actual workday and still be working the job in your head.

But Your Mind Doesn’t Always Clock Out

That’s the part I’m paying the most attention to.

What am I carrying home?

Because I can’t control every workplace system.

I can’t fix every leadership problem.

I can’t make grown people communicate.

And I definitely cannot personally reorganize an entire workplace because I happen to see where the problems are. 😂

What I can pay attention to is how much access the job gets to me after I leave.

Am I still replaying conversations?

Am I irritated hours later?

Am I explaining the same situation over and over at home?

Am I allowing somebody else’s disorganization to become my emotional burden?

Because at some point, protecting yourself at work isn’t only about what you say to other people.

Sometimes the boundary is with yourself.

So How Do We Stay Without Losing Ourselves?

I don’t have a cute answer for this.

And I don’t want to pretend I do.

Right now, I think it looks like doing my job well. Asking the questions I genuinely need answered. Learning the policies. Documenting when appropriate. Staying out of unnecessary gossip. Paying attention to patterns without becoming consumed by them.

It means choosing my battles.

It means remembering that being capable of fixing something doesn’t mean I’ve been hired to fix it.

It means not volunteering every damn solution that enters my head. 😂

And it means developing a transition between work and home so that my family doesn’t keep receiving the emotional leftovers of a workplace they don’t even work at.

Maybe most importantly, I’m reminding myself:

I work there. I don’t have to emotionally live there.

A stable paycheck matters.

So does a stable mind.

And sometimes the healthiest decision isn’t immediately walking away.

Sometimes it’s learning how to remain whole while you decide whether staying still makes sense.

What about you?

Have you ever worked somewhere that was professionally stable but emotionally exhausting?

How did you protect yourself without immediately quitting?

Share your experience in the comments if you’re comfortable just leave out names, employers, or identifying details. I have a feeling I’m not the only one who has had to figure this shit out. 😂🤎