Let It Be Smaller Than You Want

No redemption arc. Just the handrails that make this week bearable.

It’s Sunday morning and Microsoft Teams is already clearing its throat.

The notifications start with that tiny sound, like someone tapping a microphone to see if it’s on. And suddenly I’m not in my kitchen anymore. I’m in next week.

I open my laptop “just to check something,” and within ten minutes I’m building the list. The priorities. The must-do’s that pretend they are neutral facts.

My hands are shaking a little, and it takes me a second to clock why. Coffee. More coffee than I thought. Coffee as a strategy. Coffee as a way to get through a day that isn’t even fully here yet. Whoops. No more espresso for me today. 🙃

My chest is doing that quiet clench thing. Not enough to call it panic. Just enough to make everything feel tighter than it needs to be.

The list is huge. Offensively huge. And my mind does what it always does when it sees a wall of tasks: Did I really not do anything last week?

Then I look at last week’s list. Just as long and mostly done. Proof that I wasn’t lazy. Proof that I was working the whole time. Proof that the load keeps regenerating like something alive.

My calendar looks like Tetris on level 100. No clean lines. No empty spaces. Just blocks falling faster than I can place them.

There’s a bargain that starts forming in my body before I even finish the coffee: If I can plan hard enough today, tomorrow won’t hurt as much. Somewhere along the way, “prepared” started meaning “pre-suffering.”

But the thing is, planning is still work. And Sundays weren’t meant to be a second job.

What I’m Protecting Now

I’m not back on the mat yet. I haven’t figured out how to hold the new role and the thread and the grief and the wanting. I don’t have the architecture for all of it.

So I’m doing something smaller. Three things. Boring things. Things that don’t make a good story.

Getting in bed like it matters, instead of collapsing like I’m disposable. Even when I don’t sleep well. Even when my brain keeps pacing.

A plate. A chair. Ten minutes where I’m not eating like I’m being chased. Even if it’s leftovers. Even if it’s not peaceful. Even if it’s just human. And I’m lighting candles every night at dinner. It’s beautiful 🧡

Fifteen minutes outside. The cold air on my face. Proof the sky is still doing sky thingys. No music. Just me and the clouds.

These aren’t the thread. They’re not the thing I’m proud of. They’re not the version of me I’m trying to get back to. They’re handrails. The small structure I grip when the stairs are steep and my body is already bargaining with the week.

The Difference

The thread is what you tend. It needs attention. Consistency. Room.

The frame is what holds you when you don’t have room. When grief brain is eating your short-term memory. When money stress turns every decision into math. When sensory overload makes simple things feel loud. When your body is quietly threatening a migraine if you keep pretending you’re fine.

The frame isn’t impressive. It’s not the thing you’d put in a caption if someone asked how you’re doing. It’s the unsexy answer to one question: What keeps the structure from collapsing while I carry everything else?

What’s Happening in the Body

The body doesn’t speak in paragraphs. It speaks in signals.

The headache that isn’t “about” anything. The anxiety with no story. The shoulder pain you can’t explain. The breath that won’t deepen. The sudden flash of irritation at basically nothing.

It’s not broken. It’s getting louder until you answer.

When we skip lunch, override tired, push thrhrough, our system escalates. Not to punish us. To get our attention.

But when we protect these three small things, when we prove through repetition that we won’t abandon the basics, when we wont abandon ourselves… something changes. The system stops screaming.

Not because we fixed our life. Not because we got back to the version of us with time for rituals and a calm nervous system. Because we answered: Yes.

Even in this. Yes.

Departmental Authorizations

Some of you wrote last week and said: I know exactly what you mean. My thread loosened too. I stopped baking muffins. Oh, that one I felt in my soul. 🥺

And maybe you’ve been trying to get back to it. Or telling yourself you should. Or quietly grieving it while also feeling ridiculous for grieving something so small.

But it’s not small. It’s not the yoga. It’s who you were when you had time to be a person.

This week isn’t about getting back to it.

This is what you’re allowed in the meantime:

• Be allowed to let the thread stay loose.

• Be allowed to stop performing resilience.

• Be allowed to let maintenance be the whole plan.

• Be allowed to be a person who is not “improving” right now.

The discipline isn’t in doing more. It’s in protecting the same three small things. That boring scaffolding. Those handrails of life. Even when they feel too small to matter. Even when they don’t look like progress. Even when part of you hates that this is what you can manage.

This Week

The thread is still there. It didn’t break. It loosened. And we can trust that we will re-meet these threads later, and they will re-meet us, when we are ready.

But right now, I don’t need the thread. I need the frame. Three things. Small enough to keep. Boring enough to protect.

Not to do more. Not to be better. Just to be held.

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The Living Room is scaffolding in community form. A place to show up as you are, with the thread still loose, and be witnessed as the beautiful human you are.

Our next Living Room is on February 28th. You are welcome.