[link to audio below] I’ve been thinking about the people we call “strong.” The dependable ones. The capable ones. The people everybody assumes are fine because, historically, they usually figure it out. And I wonder if sometimes being capable actually works against us. Because when somebody is visibly falling apart, people notice. When the capable person is overwhelmed, they often still answer the text, make the appointment, pick up the groceries, remember the birthday, help somebody else solve their problem and say, “I’m fine.” And technically… they might be. They’re functioning. But functioning and having plenty of capacity are not the same thing. I also don’t think this is only about traditional “caregiving.” Sometimes you’re carrying somebody else’s illness, addiction, grief, divorce, financial problem, family crisis, aging parent, struggling child—or simply the emotional weight of loving someone who is going through something you cannot fix. That stuff comes home with you. And then, weirdly, regular life just keeps happening. Somebody still needs to know what’s for dinner. There’s laundry in the dryer. The dog needs out. Someone can’t find a shoe. You have an email you forgot to answer. And somehow the world does not issue you a little sign that says: PLEASE EXCUSE THIS PERSON FROM NORMAL LIFE. THEY CURRENTLY HAVE TOO MUCH SH*T GOING ON. You can be having one of the hardest weeks of your life and still have to buy toilet paper. Which is both ridiculous and probably a little bit merciful. Maybe the ordinary stuff keeps us grounded. But maybe we also need to get better at noticing the people who look like they’re handling everything beautifully. Sometimes the person who needs someone to say, “What can I take off your plate?” is the person who appears to have the firmest grip on it. So, I’m curious… 🙋🏽‍♀️ Are you usually the person people consider “the strong one”? And when you’re overwhelmed, do you actually tell anybody—or do you just keep functioning until it passes?

I’ve been thinking a lot about anger lately. Not the quick kind—the irritation that comes and goes. I mean the anger we carry. The betrayal from years ago. The person we still can’t forgive. The thing that happened that never should have happened. The apology we never received. The injustice that was never made right. And sometimes we hold onto it because letting go feels almost like saying it didn’t matter. Or worse—it feels like they won. Maybe that’s especially easy to understand this time of year. From Friday Night Lights to Saturday college football, Sunday NFL games and Monday Night Football, we spend practically the whole weekend watching a scoreboard. Somebody gets the W. Somebody gets the L. And somewhere along the way, I think we started keeping score in our relationships that way too. If I forgive them, they win. If I stop being angry, they got away with it. If I let this go, somehow I lose. But maybe we’ve been defining the W wrong. Because forgiveness isn’t saying what happened was okay. It doesn’t mean reconciliation. It doesn’t mean removing boundaries, forgetting what happened, or allowing someone access to you again. Sometimes forgiveness simply means: I am no longer willing to let what you did continue living inside of me. I’ve been reading a lot lately about the connection between our emotional and physical lives. And while I would never say one emotion causes one particular illness, I do believe our bodies carry more of our stories than we sometimes realize. Stress has a cost. Bitterness has a cost. Living every day in fight-or-flight has a cost. And recently I heard a woman who had experienced unimaginable loss explain something that stopped me. The grief couldn’t be fixed. She had to feel it. Walk through it. Live with the fact that something precious had been taken from her. But the anger? Eventually, she realized she could do something with that. She reached a point where she prayed, essentially, God, I can’t do this by myself. If I’m ever going to forgive these people, You’re going to have to help me.