Blog

Coming Home Different

I knew this trip would be special. I knew we would see beautiful places, meet interesting people, eat incredible food, and make memories that would stay with us for years. What I didn’t expect was to come home feeling different. Not dramatically different, and not in a way I can neatly explain, but shifted somehow. Somewhere between unfamiliar streets, long days at sea, conversations with people we hope to see again, and mornings when there was absolutely nowhere I had to be, something in me finally got quiet. I had forgotten what that felt like.

Before we left, I was anxious about almost everything. I worried about what I was leaving behind, what might happen while I was gone, what I might forget, and all the pieces of everyday life I normally keep carefully balanced. Even as we started the trip, part of my brain was still at home, mentally running through lists and responsibilities. Feeling like I had abandoned people who were gonna go through major things while we were gone. But there is something about travel that slowly loosens your grip on all of that. You can only stand in front of so many beautiful places, wander through so many unfamiliar streets, and look out across so much open water before the noise starts to lose some of its power. The things that seemed so urgent back home begin to feel a little smaller, and eventually you realize the world kept turning without your constant supervision.

At some point, I actually rested. Not the kind of rest where you sit on the couch while checking your phone, answering emails, thinking about laundry, or mentally preparing for Monday, but the kind where your body and your mind both begin to understand that nothing is required of you in that moment. I think that may have been one of the greatest gifts of taking a longer vacation. So often we try to squeeze rest into five or seven days, but the first few days are spent getting there, recovering from travel, and adjusting to being away. Then we try to fit in everything we want to see and do, and just about the time we finally begin to relax, we are thinking about packing, flights, work, and everything waiting for us at home. This time there was enough time to move past the excitement and exhaustion, enough time to stop counting the days, and enough time to truly unwind.

There was also the wonder of meeting new people and seeing places I had only known through photographs or stories. We shared conversations with strangers from different places and different walks of life, wandered through cities layered with history, tried new foods, laughed at things that went wrong, and woke up not always knowing exactly what the day would bring. Travel has always reminded me how big the world is, but this trip reminded me how easy it is for my own world to become small when I am buried in routines, schedules, responsibilities, and expectations. There is so much life happening outside of the little circle we move through every day, and sometimes it takes leaving home to remember that.

Maybe that is why coming home feels so complicated. I missed home. I missed my own bed, familiar food, familiar routines, and the comfort of knowing where everything is. Yet as the trip came to an end, I also felt an unexpected anxiety about re-entering normal life. There are alarms, schedules, work, appointments, chores, responsibilities, and endless things that seem to need an immediate answer waiting on the other side of vacation. I found myself wondering how quickly the version of me who had finally learned to slow down would disappear once everyday life started demanding my attention again.

That may be the biggest thing I brought home with me: the realization that I don’t want to lose that version of myself. The woman who could sit still(ish) without feeling like she should be doing something else. The woman who wandered without needing every moment to have a purpose. The woman who looked around instead of constantly looking ahead. The woman who allowed herself to rest without feeling guilty about it. I think that is also why I came home already anxious to travel again. It isn’t because home isn’t good, and it isn’t because I want to escape my life. It is because travel reminds me of a version of myself that gets buried too easily in the middle of everyday living — a version that is curious, present, open, rested, and a little lighter.

Maybe the goal now isn’t simply to start planning the next trip, although I certainly want to do that. Maybe the real challenge is figuring out how to bring some of what I found out there back into my life here. To protect quiet moments instead of filling every empty space. To stop treating rest like something that has to be earned. To remember that not everything is urgent and that life does not fall apart simply because I step away from it for a while. Most of all, I want to remember how it felt to slow down enough to notice where I was, who I was with, and the life happening right in front of me.

I left home anxious about going. I came home anxious to go again. Somewhere along the way, I remembered just how much wandering changes me, and maybe that has always been the point.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

When Something Wonderful Still Feels Heavy

We leave for Europe soon. A trip I have dreamed about, planned for, saved for, talked about, researched, and looked forward to for what feels like forever. There are incredible things waiting for us on the other side of that flight. Places I have never seen. Food I cannot wait to try. Streets I want to wander. Memories Tim and I have been planning to make together. I know how fortunate I am to be going, and I know this is supposed to be exciting. And yet, right now, excitement is having a hard time finding room to breathe.

I feel raw and numb in the aftermath of saying goodbye to Joy. Somehow those two things can exist together. I can feel like every nerve ending is exposed and, at the same time, like part of me has gone completely quiet. The house feels different without her. Our routines are different without her. Even preparing to leave feels different because there is one little soul missing from the equation. I think grief does that. It quietly changes the shape of everything, even things that seemingly have nothing to do with the loss.

Then there are Lilah and Reba. I watch them and wonder what they understand. I wonder if they are grieving Joy too, or simply confused by another change in their world. And now the suitcases are out, which means they know something else is happening. They know those suitcases mean we leave. Maybe I am projecting some of my own anxiety onto them, but every time I look at them, I worry. Are they okay? Will they be okay while we are gone? Do they feel unsettled? Do they know we are coming back? I wish there were some way to explain all of it to them.

And apparently my brain has decided that worrying about our dogs isn’t enough. There are so many things happening in life around us right now that I cannot control. Situations involving people I love. Decisions that aren’t mine to make. Things that could change while we are thousands of miles away. I keep thinking about how removed I will be if something happens, as though being physically closer somehow gives me control I don’t actually have anyway.

That may be the hardest part for me to admit. I like knowing what is happening. I like being available. I like believing that if something goes sideways, I can step in, make a phone call, solve a problem, help somebody, or at least be present. Europe puts an ocean between me and all of that. Maybe that is part of what my anxiety is really fighting—the reminder that being nearby has never actually made me the one in control.

My body seems determined to remind me of everything my brain is carrying. I am not sleeping. My heart races when I think about leaving. I have a constant nagging feeling that I have forgotten something important. I mentally run through lists: passports, clothes, reservations, medications, dogs, work, family, flights, transfers, excursions, chargers, money—and somehow I still come away convinced there is something I haven’t thought of. It is anxiety’s favorite trick: convincing you there is one more disaster hiding just outside your field of vision if you would only worry hard enough to find it.

So I am trying to talk myself back from the ledge a little at a time. I am reminding myself that this is a dream trip. I am reminding myself how much Tim and I have planned and how excited we have been. I am reminding myself that there are beautiful moments ahead of us that I don’t want to miss because I spent them mentally standing back home in Texas. I want to look up. I want to see Europe instead of staring at my phone waiting for something to go wrong. I want to eat the food, wander the streets, take the pictures, laugh with my husband, stand somewhere impossibly beautiful and realize, We are actually here.

Maybe I don’t have to feel completely okay before I go. Maybe I can board the plane grieving Joy, miss Lilah and Reba before we’ve even left them, worry about the people I love, and still allow myself to experience something wonderful. Maybe gratitude and grief are not opposites. Maybe excitement and anxiety can sit beside each other for a while. Maybe I don’t have to solve every problem, anticipate every possibility, or make sure the entire world is perfectly settled before I allow myself to leave it for sixteen days.

Because the truth is, life will keep happening whether I am standing here trying to supervise it or walking through Rome with Tim. And perhaps part of this trip is going to be learning to let it.

Right now, I am still spiraling a little. I am still waking up with that uneasy feeling that there is something I should be doing. I am still looking at Joy’s absence, Lilah and Reba’s faces, the suitcases on the floor, and the seemingly endless list in my head and wondering how I am supposed to simply walk out the door. But I will. I will double-check the passports. I will probably check them again. I will hug the dogs far too many times. I will worry. I will cry. I will get on the plane anyway.

And somewhere on the other side of all this heaviness, there is a trip Tim and I have dreamed about waiting for us. I don’t want anxiety to convince me that I have to choose between caring deeply about everything I am leaving behind and being fully present for everything waiting ahead. I think there is room in my heart for both.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

The Price Tag of Love

There is a quote that says, “Grief is the price we pay for love.” I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. The older I get, the more I think grief isn’t a bill you pay once and move on from. It’s a weight you agree to carry for the rest of your life because, at some point, someone or something was worth loving.

People often talk about “getting over” grief, but I don’t think that’s how it works. We don’t get over the people we’ve loved. We don’t wake up one day and realize the ache has disappeared. Instead, we become stronger at carrying it. At first, the weight is crushing. Every memory catches you off guard, every quiet moment reminds you of what is missing, and tears come without permission. Then, little by little, life keeps moving. The world assumes you’ve found your footing again.

But grief doesn’t leave. It simply becomes quieter.

I think that’s the hardest part. In the beginning, grief is loud. Later, it becomes something you carry privately. You smile. You go to work. You answer emails. You laugh at dinner. All while carrying the invisible weight of someone—or in my case this week, someone with four paws—who isn’t there anymore.

Joy has occupied so much of my heart these last few years. Caring for an elderly dog meant slowing down, rearranging routines, lifting her when her legs couldn’t carry her, celebrating small victories, and quietly wondering when love would require the hardest act of kindness. Now the house is quieter. There isn’t a little nose nudging for the cheese tax or tiny paws following me from room to room. Her snoring doesn’t fill the room at night anymore. Those little interruptions that once filled the day have become the loudest reminders of her absence.

And somehow, losing Joy doesn’t just make me miss Joy.

It brings Fred back to my heart. It reminds me of Hope. Of grandparents. Of every goodbye I’ve ever had to say. That’s the strange thing about grief—it never seems to travel alone. Every new loss reaches back and gently touches the old ones, reminding you that your heart has been here before. The weight isn’t just today’s sadness; it’s every goodbye you’ve ever learned to carry. It’s a reminder there are more goodbyes in our future with Lilah, Reba, and aging family.

If I’m honest, I’m tired of saying goodbye.

It feels like so much of my life has been marked by endings. People I wasn’t ready to lose. Pets who gave me every ounce of loyalty they had. Seasons of life that slipped away before I was ready to let them go. Sometimes I wonder how many times one heart can break before it simply grows accustomed to the ache.

But maybe that’s because love doesn’t disappear either.

The heart doesn’t make room for someone new by pushing someone else out. It stretches. Every person, every dog, every season we love leaves fingerprints on who we become. So when we grieve, we aren’t just mourning their absence. We’re carrying the shape they left behind inside us.

If grief really is the price tag of love, then I suppose I wouldn’t ask for a refund. The cost has been unbearably high at times, but so was the privilege of loving them in the first place. The more it hurts the more you know you truly loved them.

Maybe healing isn’t about learning to let go at all. Maybe it’s about learning to carry every goodbye with enough grace that it no longer keeps us from loving again. The weight never disappears. It simply becomes part of who we are—a quiet reminder that a life filled with grief is also a life that has been filled with extraordinary love.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

Loving Her Enough to Let Her Go

I’ve spent the last several months carrying around a weight that I haven’t wanted to name. It’s the kind of weight that sits in the pit of your stomach when you know a decision is coming, but saying it out loud somehow makes it real. We have made the decision to let Joy go next week, and while I know in my heart it is the kindest thing we can do for her, that knowledge hasn’t quieted the anxiety. If anything, it has made it louder.

Everyone says you’ll know when it’s time, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. There isn’t a flashing sign that suddenly appears or a single moment where everything changes. Instead, it happens so gradually that you find yourself questioning every day. She still gets excited when she sees us. She still demands the cheese tax. She still wants to be as close to Tim and me as she can possibly get. But then there are the other moments. The hesitation to be up on the bed or couch that are happening more often. The hips that no longer wants to cooperate. The accidents that seem to embarrass her more than they inconvenience us. The breathing that has become more labored. The off-putting smell on her fur because she can no longer keep herself as clean as she once did. None of those moments, by themselves, feel like enough. Together, though, they paint a picture that I’ve been trying desperately not to look at.

The hardest part of loving a dog is that we eventually have to decide whether we’re holding on because they’re still living, or because we aren’t ready to imagine life without them. Dogs will endure far more discomfort than we ever realize if it means staying by our side. They don’t complain. They don’t tell us they’re tired. They simply keep choosing us, even when their little bodies are failing them. That means the responsibility falls to us, and I think that’s one of the cruelest gifts they leave behind.

Joy has another layer to her story that makes this goodbye even harder. She wasn’t just my dog. She was Fred’s dog.

When I look through old pictures of her, I’m reminded that she has quietly carried pieces of my entire adult life. One of my favorite photos is from Christmas, with Fred wrapped in strands of colorful lights while Joy sat happily in his lap looking like she had somehow orchestrated the whole thing. It’s such a silly picture, but it captures everything about those years. Joy adored him, and he adored her. She was there for ordinary evenings, Christmas mornings, road trips, and all the little moments that never seemed important enough to photograph because we assumed there would be thousands more.

When Fred died, Joy lost someone too.

She couldn’t understand why he never came home – spent days sitting in his chair with his blanket when he was gone – but somehow she stayed beside me while I learned how to navigate a life I never expected to have. Through every hard day, every new beginning, every tear, and eventually every smile, Joy remained. Somewhere along the way, she learned to love Tim too. He never tried to replace what she had lost. He simply loved her where she was, and she made room for him in that tiny heart. Watching that happen has been one of the sweetest reminders that love doesn’t erase what came before. It simply grows large enough to hold someone new.

As we’ve talked about this decision over the last few days, I keep thinking about our upcoming trip to Europe. For weeks I found myself praying that she wouldn’t leave while we were gone because I couldn’t bear the thought of her final moments happening without us. In some ways, I think she made the decision for us. She has been telling us, gently and faithfully, that she’s getting tired. The clinginess. The falls. The slowing down. The quiet surrender of all the little things that once came so easily. Maybe loving her now means listening instead of asking her to keep trying.

There is something profoundly unfair about the fact that dogs give us every single piece of themselves, yet their lives are so much shorter than ours. Almost sixteen years somehow feels both incredibly long and impossibly short. She’s been here through two marriages, through unimaginable grief, through healing I never thought possible, through new beginnings, new homes, new routines, and all the ordinary Tuesdays in between. She isn’t just losing her life next week. An entire chapter of mine is quietly coming to an end with her.

I know there will be people who say, “She had a good, long life,” and they’re right. She did. But that doesn’t make saying goodbye easier. Gratitude and grief have never canceled each other out. In fact, I think the deeper the gratitude, the deeper the grief becomes. We don’t mourn because we were cheated. We mourn because we were blessed.

So next week, my heart will break a little more. It will be another goodbye to another beloved fur baby. It will stir up memories I haven’t visited in years. It will remind me of the husband who first placed this little dog into my life, and it will remind me how fortunate I have been to have another man willing to love her just as fiercely. Most of all, it will remind me that the greatest promise we make to our pets isn’t that we’ll keep them alive forever. It’s that we’ll protect them, even when protecting them means accepting heartbreak ourselves.

Joy has spent nearly sixteen years giving us everything she had. Next week, our final act of love will be giving her peace. And as impossible as that feels today, I hope that someday, when the ache isn’t quite so sharp, I’ll be able to look back and know that this wasn’t the day we stopped loving her. It was the day we loved her enough to let her go.

Clapping for Myself

For years I’ve been the person who circles birthdays and work anniversaries or sets email reminders for the bosses. I make sure the cards get passed around, that everyone has a chance to sign them, that no one is accidentally overlooked. It’s one of those small, invisible things that helps people feel seen and important to us. Ironically, this past Saturday marked my own fifteen-year anniversary with the company, and while there was a card because that’s what we do, no one actually remembered that it was fifteen years.

I’ll admit, it hurt more than I expected.

Not because I wanted a party or a speech or some grand display of appreciation. Fifteen years just feels significant. It’s not one project or one busy season or one good year. It’s fifteen years of showing up. Fifteen years of solving problems, learning new systems, adapting to new leadership, celebrating victories, surviving disappointments, and quietly carrying responsibilities that rarely fit neatly into a job description. When I stop to think about everything the last fifteen years has held for me it makes me want to weep.

For most of the weekend, I found myself waiting for someone to notice. Someone to say, “Fifteen years…that’s a long time. Congratulations.” When that moment didn’t come until I reminded someone this morning, I realized how easy it is to let other people become the keepers of our accomplishments. We wait for someone else to decide whether what we’ve done was meaningful enough to acknowledge.

But maybe that’s asking other people to do a job that belongs to us.

No one else has lived my fifteen years. No one else knows the mornings I walked into the office carrying burdens no one could see. No one else remembers every challenge, every deadline, every difficult conversation, every time I stayed because leaving wasn’t an option. No one else saw the tears shed in the car on the way home or behind a closed door. I know what those years cost me. I also know what they taught me. If anyone is qualified to decide whether they were worth celebrating, it’s me.

I’ve spent much of my life believing that recognition had to come from somewhere outside myself. A promotion. A compliment. A thank-you. A remembered anniversary. Those things are wonderful when they happen, but they’re unreliable places to build your sense of worth. People get busy. Calendars get full. Good intentions get lost. If I leave my value in someone else’s hands, I’ll spend far too much of my life waiting. I already have spent too much of my life waiting.

So this year I’m choosing something different. I’m choosing to tell myself congratulations. I’m choosing to recognize the woman who kept showing up, even when it was the hardest thing to do. I’m choosing to honor the years of faithfulness, resilience, and perseverance that no one else fully witnessed because I was the one living them. There is something surprisingly freeing about realizing that I don’t need permission to be proud of myself.

Maybe that’s one of the gifts that comes with experience. We eventually learn that while it’s wonderful to be celebrated by others, it’s just as important to become someone who can celebrate herself.

So here’s to fifteen years in one place – through storms and life’s ugly curveballs. Good job!! You built a career one ordinary day at a time. You weathered seasons that would have made other people quit. You kept going when it would have been easier not to. Whether anyone else remembered the milestone or not, it was real.

And that’s worth celebrating.

Blessings y’all – Amy

The Hardest Part of Vacation Isn’t Leaving

For weeks before a vacation, my mind slowly begins checking out. The countdown starts, and every day seems to stretch on forever. Work isn’t necessarily harder, but it’s harder to focus because part of me is already picturing ocean views, new cities, long dinners, and mornings without an alarm. The anticipation makes time crawl.

Then, almost without warning, it’s over.

One day you’re standing on the balcony watching the sunrise over the water, promising yourself you’ll remember exactly how peaceful you feel. The next, you’re standing in your kitchen surrounded by suitcases, trying to remember if you have anything clean to wear to work while your phone buzzes with emails that somehow multiplied while you were gone.

I’ve always thought the return home is harder than we admit. We spend so much time talking about planning the trip and soaking up every minute while we’re away that we rarely acknowledge what it feels like to step back into normal life. There’s an expectation that we should simply unpack, get a good night’s sleep, and be ready to jump right back into our routines. As if our minds can flip the same switch our luggage wheels do when they roll back into the closet.

For me, it never works that way.

Vacation reminds me of a slower version of myself. I notice things again. I linger over meals instead of rushing through them. I spend time on myself whether that’s remembering to wash my face or wearing makeup. I stop looking at the clock every thirty minutes – heck I lose track of what day it is. I find myself paying attention to conversations, sunsets, architecture, gardens, and the little moments that somehow get crowded out by everyday life. It isn’t that responsibilities disappear; it’s that they stop being the only thing occupying space in my mind.

Coming home means trading that version of myself for the one who measures her day in meetings, deadlines, laundry, grocery lists, and overflowing inboxes. Even if I enjoy my life, the transition feels abrupt. It’s almost like emotional jet lag. My body may be back home, but part of my mind is still wandering the beaches or listening to waves against the side of a ship.

I’ve started to wonder if that’s why the first few days back at work feel so exhausting. Maybe it isn’t because the workload is overwhelming. Maybe it’s because we’re asking ourselves to shift gears too quickly. We expect our minds to go from complete freedom to complete productivity overnight, and that’s asking more of ourselves than we would in almost any other situation.

When we cross time zones, we accept that we’ll need a few days to adjust. We don’t criticize ourselves for waking up at odd hours or feeling tired in the middle of the afternoon. We understand that our bodies need time to catch up. Yet when it comes to returning from vacation, we expect our minds to make that adjustment instantly.

Maybe they need time, too.

I’ve learned not to rush myself on this process. Cause if I do I get hella angry at having to work for a living lol. I like looking through the photos while the memories are still fresh instead of letting them sit on my phone for months. I’ll make one of the recipes we discovered while traveling or listen to music that reminds me of where we were. It’s my way of allowing the trip to come home with me instead of pretending it ended the moment the plane landed.

The older I get, the more I realize that the purpose of vacation isn’t simply to escape work. It’s to remember who I am when work isn’t occupying every corner of my thoughts. That version of me—the one who slows down enough to notice beauty, laugh a little more, and breathe a little deeper—isn’t someone I want to leave behind every time I unpack my suitcase.

Maybe that’s why re-entry feels so difficult. We’re not just returning to work. We’re trying to hold onto a version of ourselves that we rediscovered while we were away. And perhaps the real challenge isn’t getting back into the routine. It’s figuring out how to bring a little bit of vacation thinking into ordinary Tuesday afternoons, long after the suitcase has been put away.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Vacation Limbo

I have become convinced that there is a period of time that exists just before every vacation that deserves its own name. It’s not part of normal life, but it’s not vacation either. It’s that strange one- to two-week stretch where you’re still going to work, still doing laundry, still paying bills, still living your everyday life, but mentally you’ve already left.

I’ve decided to call it “Vacation Limbo”.

The funny thing is that the months leading up to a trip seem to disappear. You book something six months in advance and before you know it, you’re looking at boarding passes and excursion confirmations wondering how it got so close so fast. Then, somehow, the final week arrives and time completely changes its behavior.

The days get longer.

Not literally, of course, but it certainly feels that way. A Tuesday suddenly feels like it should have been followed by at least three Thursdays before ending. A single workweek feels capable of lasting an entire month. The trip is close enough that you can almost touch it, yet somehow those last few days seem to stretch endlessly between you and departure.

I think part of the problem is that your brain has already moved on. Mine certainly does. I’ll be sitting in a meeting and suddenly find myself wondering whether I packed enough sunscreen or if I remembered to order the luggage tags. I’ll be standing in line at the grocery store mentally calculating how many mornings are left before I leave. Ordinary life continues, but it has competition.

Everything becomes part of the countdown. The last dentist appointment before vacation. The last Costco run. The last Friday at work. The last time I need to remember what’s for dinner. Life becomes less about the calendar date and more about how many steps remain before I can zip up a suitcase and head out the door.

What’s interesting is that I don’t think Vacation Limbo is really about the vacation itself. I think it’s about anticipation. As adults, we spend so much of our lives focused on responsibilities, obligations, deadlines, appointments, and all the things that need our attention today. Vacation Limbo gives us permission to look ahead. It gives us something exciting sitting just over the horizon.

Maybe that’s why those days feel so long. Part of us is already living in the future. We’re imagining the places we’ll see, the people we’ll spend time with, the meals we’ll eat, and the memories we haven’t made yet. We’re trying to stay present while simultaneously daydreaming about what’s next.

It’s a ridiculous feeling, honestly. Nothing has changed, yet everything feels different. You’re still sleeping in your own bed, driving the same roads, and following the same routine, but your mind keeps wandering off like an impatient child asking, “Are we there yet?”

And if I’m being honest, I kind of love it.

The waiting is frustrating, but it’s also a reminder that I have something worth waiting for. There are certainly worse problems to have than being excited about what’s ahead. So while I may complain that this final week is moving at the speed of molasses, I know exactly what the real issue is.

I’m already gone. My suitcase just hasn’t caught up yet and someone forgot to tell my email.

Blessings y’all – Amy

The Songs That Hit Deep

A few weekends ago, I was on a girls’ trip in the Texas Hill Country. We were driving down a two-lane highway, the kind that stretches out in front of you with no particular urgency, and Cody Johnson was blasting through the speakers. My best friend and I were singing at the top of our lungs, laughing, missing half the words, and completely unconcerned with how ridiculous we sounded. It was one of those simple moments that doesn’t feel significant at the time, yet somehow you know you’ll remember it forever.

As the miles rolled by, I found myself paying attention to two songs in particular: ‘Til You Can’t and The Fall. Not because they were new to me, but because certain songs seem to evolve as we do. They mean one thing when we’re young and convinced we have all the time in the world, and something entirely different after life has taught us otherwise.

If you got a chance, take it, take it while you got a chance
If you got a dream, chase it, ’cause a dream won’t chase you back
If you’re gonna love somebody
Hold ’em as long and as strong and as close as you can
‘Til you can’t

Loss has a way of changing the lens through which you see everything. Before grief, songs about taking chances, loving deeply, and embracing life can feel inspiring. After grief, they feel urgent. They become reminders that none of us know how much time we have with the people we love or how quickly the life we know can change. For those of us who have buried someone we never wanted to lose, those messages aren’t theoretical. They’re lived experience.

There was a time in my life when I would have given almost anything to avoid the storm that was coming. If someone had offered me a glimpse into the future and shown me the heartbreak, the fear, the sleepless nights, and the years of learning how to carry grief, I would have begged for a different path. I would have chosen certainty over pain every single time.

But somewhere between then and now, something shifted.

Sitting in that truck, singing those songs with the windows down, I realized that knowing everything I know today, I would still do it all again.

The ride was worth the fall
The fall was worth the smiles
The smiles were worth the tears
Tears were worth the miles
Miles were worth the pain
Pain was worth it all
It’s all worth this life
Life is worth the ride
The ride is worth the fall

That may sound strange to anyone who hasn’t experienced profound loss, but I suspect those who have will understand immediately. I wouldn’t choose the pain because the pain itself has value. I would choose it because the love was worth it. I would choose it because every beautiful thing that came before the loss mattered. And I would choose it because surviving that storm shaped the person I became afterward.

If I hadn’t lived through those years, I wouldn’t have the life I have today. I wouldn’t be Tim’s wife. I wouldn’t be the mother I am. I wouldn’t be a Mimi, experiencing a kind of joy that my younger self couldn’t even imagine. I wouldn’t have learned that people can break into a thousand pieces and somehow still find a way to rebuild. I wouldn’t understand how grief and gratitude can occupy the same space, each making the other more visible.

The truth is that so much of who I am today was forged in circumstances I never would have chosen. That’s one of life’s great paradoxes. We spend so much time wishing away the hard chapters, only to discover later that they became part of the foundation for some of the most meaningful things in our lives.

Maybe that’s why those songs lingered with me long after the trip ended. They aren’t really about loss. They’re about life. They’re about recognizing that every day is an opportunity to show up fully, to love people well, to take the trip, make the call, say the words, and stop assuming there will always be another chance. They remind me that while none of us can avoid the falls, we can decide what we do with them.

As we continued down that highway, in the pouring rain, friendship, and music, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Not gratitude for the storms themselves, but gratitude for what waited on the other side of them. Because while I would never wish those experiences on anyone, I can honestly say that the life I have today—the people I love, the perspective I’ve gained, and the joy I now recognize in ordinary moments—exists because I survived them.

Sometimes a song is just a song. And sometimes it’s a reminder that the hardest chapters of our lives don’t get the final word. Sometimes it’s a reminder that while we may not get to choose every storm, we do get to choose what we do with the life that’s waiting for us after the clouds finally clear.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

The Sunday Scaries

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about the Sunday scaries and wondering why they seem to hit me harder than they used to. It’s a strange phenomenon because nothing has actually happened yet. The work week hasn’t started. No difficult conversations have occurred. No crises have landed in my inbox. And yet, sometime on Sunday afternoon, I can feel my body begin preparing for battle.

My shoulders tighten first. Then comes the restlessness. I’ll find myself unable to fully enjoy whatever I’m doing because my mind has already left the weekend and started living in Monday. By Sunday evening, my thoughts are racing ahead through the entire week, trying to anticipate every possible problem that could arise. A difficult meeting becomes a catastrophe. A simple conversation becomes a confrontation. A challenge becomes a disaster before it has even had a chance to exist.

What fascinates me is how convincing these fears feel in the moment. As I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, every worry seems completely reasonable. My brain presents each one as an urgent issue that requires immediate attention. Surely if I think about it long enough, I can solve it before it happens. Surely if I prepare for every possible outcome, I can somehow protect myself from disappointment, stress, or conflict.

The problem is that by the time Monday arrives, I’ve often lived through the week once already. I’ve attended the meetings in my head. I’ve had the arguments. I’ve received the criticism. I’ve rehearsed the failures. My body responds as though these things have already happened, even though they exist only in the stories my mind has created.

I’ve often heard people say that anxiety is worrying about things that will probably never happen. While there is certainly truth in that, I’ve realized that explanation has never fully resonated with me. Part of what makes the Sunday scaries so difficult is that life has taught me that not every fear is irrational.

There have been moments in my life when the thing I was worried about actually happened. There have been phone calls I didn’t want to answer, conversations I dreaded having, and losses I desperately hoped I could somehow avoid. Some of the hardest chapters of my life arrived after periods of knowing they might be coming. When you’ve lived through enough heartbreak, enough uncertainty, and enough grief, your brain begins to believe that its job is to stay one step ahead of pain.

Looking back, I can see how that survival instinct developed. If I can anticipate every possible outcome, maybe I won’t be blindsided. If I can identify every risk, maybe I can prevent disaster. If I stay alert enough, perhaps I can keep the people I love safe and protect myself from being hurt again.

The problem is that a mind trained to watch for genuine threats doesn’t always know the difference between a life-changing crisis and an ordinary Monday morning. It responds to an upcoming meeting with the same vigilance it once reserved for truly difficult seasons. It treats uncertainty as danger. It mistakes worry for preparation and anxiety for control.

What I’ve started to understand is that my Sunday scaries aren’t really about the week ahead. They’re about my relationship with uncertainty. They are the result of a mind that desperately wants guarantees in a world that refuses to provide them.

The irony is that all those hours spent worrying never actually give me what I’m looking for. They don’t make me more prepared. They don’t eliminate risk. They don’t provide certainty. They simply rob me of the one thing I actually possess in that moment, which is the Sunday evening sitting right in front of me.

While anxiety constantly reminds me that difficult things are possible, experience has taught me something equally important. I’ve survived every difficult season that has come my way. I’ve survived grief. I’ve survived loss. I’ve survived disappointment, uncertainty, conflict, and change. Not because I successfully predicted every outcome, but because when life demanded something of me, I found a way through it.

Maybe that’s the lesson I’m slowly learning.

The goal isn’t to convince myself that nothing bad will ever happen. Life has already proven otherwise. The goal is to trust myself enough to know that whatever happens, I will deal with it when it arrives. I don’t need to carry the entire week before it begins. I don’t need to solve Wednesday’s problems on Sunday evening. I don’t need to sacrifice today’s peace in an attempt to purchase tomorrow’s safety.

The truth is that this moment deserves my attention just as much as whatever waits for me tomorrow. The conversation with my husband. The dog curled up nearby. The last few quiet hours of the weekend. The sunset outside the window. These things are real. The disasters my mind is rehearsing are, for the most part, only possibilities.

Monday will come whether I worry about it or not. The week will unfold in ways I can predict and in ways I can’t. What I can control is whether I spend Sunday evening living the life that is actually happening or preparing for one that may never arrive.

And if experience has taught me anything, it’s this: I am far stronger than my anxiety gives me credit for. The same strength that carried me through the hardest days of my life is still here. I don’t need to spend Sunday night rehearsing every possible disaster to be ready for whatever this week brings.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

The Cost of Relaxing

This past weekend, I stood at a fence in the Texas Hill Country and watched the sun sink behind the trees. The sky was painted in shades of orange and gold, and for a little while there was nowhere I needed to be. No emails demanding a response. No office politics or drama. No laundry. No mental checklist scrolling endlessly through my brain. Just a beautiful sunset, a good friend, and a quiet moment at the end of the day.

As I stood there, I felt something that has become surprisingly rare in my life.

Peace.

Not excitement. Not distraction. Not the temporary relief that comes from checking something off a to-do list. Actual peace. The kind that settles deep enough that you don’t realize how tightly you’ve been holding yourself together until you finally let go.

Since coming home, I’ve been trying to understand why relaxing has always been so difficult for me. For years, I assumed I was simply bad at it. Bad at vacations. Bad at long weekends. Bad at sitting still. Even when I’m exhausted, there is a part of me that resists slowing down. But I think I’m finally starting to understand why.

Maybe I don’t struggle to relax because I don’t enjoy it. Maybe I struggle to relax because I know what comes next.

The truth is that when I genuinely relax, re-entering my normal life feels catastrophic to my mind, body, and nervous system. Within hours of getting home, my stomach was in knots. The headaches returned. My thoughts started racing ahead to Monday before Sunday was even over. It felt like my body was rebelling against being asked to step back into a life that had suddenly become much louder than it was two days earlier.

And that made me wonder if this is why vacations have always carried a strange anxiety for me. Not because I don’t want to go. Not because I don’t enjoy them. Quite the opposite. Maybe it’s because somewhere deep down I know the bill is coming due when I get back.

When you’re living inside stress every day, you adapt to it. You normalize it. You convince yourself that the tension in your shoulders, the knot in your stomach, the racing thoughts, and the constant feeling of bracing for impact are simply part of adulthood. Part of work. Part of life. You become so accustomed to carrying the weight that you stop noticing how heavy it is.

Then something happens. A girls’ trip. A vacation. A long weekend. A sunset over the Hill Country. For forty-eight hours, you set the load down.

The problem is that once you’ve remembered what it feels like to put it down, picking it back up feels almost unbearable.

I used to think that meant relaxing wasn’t worth it. Why spend two wonderful days away if you’re going to spend the next several days paying for it with headaches, nausea, anxiety, and exhaustion? Why look forward to vacations if returning home feels so difficult?

Lately, though, I’m starting to think I’ve been asking the wrong question.

Maybe the problem isn’t that relaxation makes me sick. Maybe relaxation reveals how sick stress has made me. Maybe those forty-eight hours didn’t create the contrast. Maybe they simply exposed it. Maybe standing at that fence watching the sun disappear beyond the trees wasn’t an escape from reality at all. Maybe it was the first honest glimpse of what life feels like when my nervous system isn’t constantly running a marathon.

I don’t know exactly what to do with that realization yet. What I do know is that if two days of peace can feel that good, and returning to normal can feel that hard, perhaps the goal isn’t to avoid relaxing. Perhaps the goal is to build a life that doesn’t feel so impossible to return to once I’ve remembered what peace feels like.

Blessings y’all – Amy