Tag: anxiety

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.

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 Pressure of Free Time…

There’s a very specific kind of giddiness that comes with a long weekend as an adult. It starts sometime around Thursday afternoon, when you realize there’s an extra day sitting out there waiting for you. By Friday, it feels full of possibility in a way regular weekends never quite do. One extra day somehow tricks your brain into believing you suddenly have time to become fully rested, productive, creative, organized, and caught up on life, friends, and family all at once.

The mental list starts building almost immediately. You’re going to sew. Clean out a closet. Take a nap. Water the plants. Sit outside with a glass of wine and actually relax for once. Maybe read. Maybe organize. Maybe do absolutely nothing for a little while and not feel guilty about it.

But somewhere between all the possibilities and all the pressure we quietly place on ourselves, the long weekend starts feeling less restful and more overwhelming.

At least it’s that way for me.

Because instead of simply enjoying the extra time, my brain starts trying to carefully distribute it. Even now it’s sitting here whirring trying to figure out what I’m going to jump off this chair and get done. If I spend the afternoon sewing, I probably should’ve been productive. If I spend the day cleaning and organizing, I’ll feel disappointed that I never actually rested. If I sit still too long, I start mentally calculating all the things I “should” be doing instead. If I worked a little Monday somehow my week next week won’t be so bad. And somehow having too many choices leaves me oddly stuck, drifting from one thing to another without ever fully settling into any of them.

Then suddenly it’s Monday evening. The weekend is over. The house still isn’t completely done. Half the projects remain untouched. The rest somehow didn’t feel restful enough. And despite having an extra day off, you’re still tired and somehow emotionally unprepared to go back to work.

I think part of the problem is that many of us have forgotten how to let free time simply exist without turning it into another thing to manage well. 🙋🏻‍♀️ We approach long weekends with such high expectations. Surely this is the weekend we’ll finally catch up, recharge, reset, organize life, and become the version of ourselves who has it all together.

But maybe that’s too much pressure to place on a few open days.

The older I get, the more I think the best weekends are rarely the ones where everything gets done. They’re usually the quieter ones. The ones where you laugh a little, rest a little, wander through a project because you want to instead of because you scheduled it, and maybe sit outside at the end of the day with a glass of wine realizing you didn’t maximize every minute… but you lived in some of them.

Maybe the goal of a long weekend was never to fix our exhaustion in the first place. Maybe it was simply meant to give us a little room to breathe.

Blessings Ya’ll – Amy

Learning to Live With the Weather

For a long time I thought depression and anxiety were problems to solve. Something broken in me that I needed to fix or snap back together.

Like a puzzle with the right pieces hidden somewhere. If I just worked hard enough, prayed enough, exercised enough, organized enough, went through enough counseling, or “thought positively” enough, eventually I would arrive at the finish line where they no longer existed.

But that’s not really how it works.

Depression and anxiety aren’t always dragons to be slain. They’re more like weather patterns that move through your life. Sometimes the skies are clear and bright and everything feels easy. And sometimes the clouds roll in without warning and the air gets heavy and dark.

For a long time I kept trying to conquer the storm.

I thought if I could just be stronger, or more disciplined, or somehow “fix” myself, the clouds would disappear for good. When they didn’t, I felt like I was failing some invisible test everyone else seemed to be passing.

But somewhere along the way I realized something important.

This isn’t something I conquer. It’s something I learn to live with.

Some days the sky is blue and the sun is warm and I move through life easily. I laugh, I create, I plan, I feel hopeful. Those days remind me that the storm isn’t permanent. But other days the clouds roll in again. Anxiety hums quietly in the background of everything. Depression makes even small things feel heavy. Getting through the day can feel like walking through deep water. Dealing with other humans, especially at work, can feel insurmountable.

And those are the days when I have to remind myself that storms are not personal failures.

They are just weather.

I’ve learned that living with depression and anxiety isn’t about eliminating the storms. It’s about learning how to ride them out without believing they will last forever.

Some days that means doing the smallest things and counting them as victories.

Getting out of bed.

Taking a walk.

Answering one email.

Not yelling at someone who probably deserves it and more importantly not taking it out on someone who definitely doesn’t deserve it.

Small things that other people might not even notice can feel like climbing mountains on the hard days.

And that’s okay.

One of the greatest gifts through these storms has been having someone who loves me through it. Someone who doesn’t expect me to always be sunny and easy and carefree. Someone who understands that sometimes the weather in my mind changes without warning.

Someone who stays anyway. Tim is amazing that way.

There is a quiet kind of grace in being loved through your storms. Not fixed. Not judged. Not told to simply “snap out of it.” Just loved — patiently and steadily — while the clouds pass through.

That kind of love doesn’t erase depression or anxiety.

But it makes the storms easier to weather.

Over time I’ve stopped measuring my life by how often the clouds appear. Instead, I’m learning to measure it by how I move through them. By the resilience that grows quietly inside the hard seasons. By the compassion I’ve learned for myself and for others who are fighting battles no one else can see. I’ve also learned it’s ok to cry and feel the things I feel – no one else has to understand the storm raging inside me.

The truth is, many people are walking through storms we know nothing about. Depression and anxiety are invisible companions for millions of people. Some days they whisper. Some days they roar. But they do not define the whole landscape of a life.

They are just part of the weather.

And like all weather, they change.

The sun returns eventually.

The air clears.

The world feels lighter again.

Living with depression and anxiety has taught me something I might never have learned otherwise: strength isn’t always loud or heroic.

Sometimes strength is simply surviving.

Staying in the middle of the storm.

Staying in the middle of the uncertainty.

Staying long enough to see the sky clear again.

And if you’re someone who walks through these storms too, I hope you know this:

You are not broken.

You are not weak.

You are simply learning how to live with the weather.

And that is a kind of courage the world doesn’t talk about nearly enough. And isn’t nearly patient enough with.

Blessings y’all – Amy

The Waiting Room No One Talks About

There is a particular kind of anxiety that lives in the space between symptoms and answers.

It isn’t the sharp panic of a diagnosis. It isn’t even the strange relief that can come when someone finally names the problem and a plan begins. It’s something quieter and more unsettling. It’s the long hallway between “something isn’t right” and “here’s what it is.”

Sometimes that hallway feels endless.

For me, it started small enough that I ignored it.

My foot wouldn’t lift the way it should when I walked. Instead of clearing the floor smoothly, it began slapping the ground. At first I assumed I had stepped wrong or pulled a muscle. Maybe I had been sitting too long. Maybe it would go away in a day or two.

But it didn’t.

Walking suddenly required concentration. Something that had always been automatic now demanded attention. I found myself thinking about every step: lift, move, step. It felt strange to be aware of something my body had done effortlessly for decades.

Then came the numbness.

It started in my foot and slowly crept into my lower leg. It wasn’t quite the pins-and-needles feeling of a limb that had fallen asleep. It was more like a dull, unsettling loss of sensation that didn’t behave the way it should. Sometimes it would fade a little, sometimes it felt stronger, but it never really disappeared.

Just when I had started convincing myself it must be something simple — maybe a pinched nerve in my back — the numbness appeared in my arm too.

That’s when fear really moved in.

I made the appointment confident that modern medicine — with all its scans and tests and specialists — would surely find the cause. I sat in exam rooms while doctors studied images and reports.

I expected the moment when someone would say, “Here’s what we’re seeing.”

Except sometimes that moment doesn’t come.

Instead of answers, what I kept hearing was, “Let’s run one more test.”

Another scan. Another appointment. Another specialist. Each time I walked in hoping this would be the visit where someone finally connected the dots. And each time I left with the same thing — not answers, but the next step in the search.

None of the doctors seemed alarmed, but none of them could quite explain it either. The tests ruled things out, but they didn’t quite explain what was happening.

And so the investigation continued.

One more test. One more scan. One more appointment.

And suddenly my mind started filling in all the blanks medicine could not.

Is this serious? Is it getting worse? Did we miss something? Did I wait too long?

What if this is the beginning of something bigger?

My body suddenly felt like a place I didn’t completely trust anymore. Every sensation became something to analyze. Every twitch, ache, or strange feeling felt like a possible clue. I noticed things I had never noticed before — the way my foot landed when I walked, the way my leg felt climbing stairs, the way my hand tingled if I rested my arm too long.

Because no one had given the story a clear ending yet, my mind kept writing its own versions.

Some of them were frightening.

The hardest part hasn’t always been the symptoms themselves. It has been the uncertainty. Humans are remarkably capable of facing difficult things when we understand them. Give us a diagnosis — even a hard one — and we can begin building a plan. We can research, prepare, adapt, fight.

But uncertainty leaves me suspended.

People around me try to reassure me with the best of intentions. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” “They will find it.” “Try not to worry.”

But worry is exactly what grows in unanswered space.

I find myself reading scan reports like they’re written in a secret language I’m trying to decode. I notice every new sensation in my body. I pay attention to my steps, my balance, the way my limbs feel throughout the day.

Sometimes I even start questioning myself.

Maybe I’m exaggerating.

Maybe it’s stress.

Maybe I should just ignore it.

But my body keeps reminding me that something changed.

So I wait.

I wait for the next appointment, the next test, the next specialist. I wait for the phone call that might finally bring clarity. I wait for the moment when the puzzle pieces come together and someone says, “Here’s what’s happening.”

Waiting can be exhausting.

But there is also something I’m slowly learning in this season: uncertainty does not automatically mean catastrophe. Bodies are complicated. Medicine is complicated. Sometimes the path to answers simply takes time — more imaging, more observation, more pieces of the puzzle.

In the meantime, life keeps moving.

There are still ordinary moments — work never stops, conversations at the dinner table, laughter in the living room, the steady rhythm of daily life. Those small moments become anchors when the bigger questions feel overwhelming.

I’m learning that fear thrives in isolation, but uncertainty becomes more manageable when it’s shared — with my husband, with family, with friends, or even writing about it here.

And slowly, one appointment at a time, the picture will likely become clearer.

Maybe the tests will eventually reveal the cause. Maybe the symptoms will settle and fade. Maybe the doctors will piece together the clues that once seemed scattered.

But for now, I’m living in the waiting room no one talks about — the space between not knowing and understanding.

And even in the middle of unanswered questions, I’m still moving forward.

Sometimes carefully. Sometimes anxiously. Sometimes concentrating on every single step.

But moving forward all the same.

One day, one test, one conversation closer to clarity.

Blessings ya’ll – Amy

Sewing My Way to Sanity

Quilting started as a hobby. It has since evolved into emotional regulation… and an entirely unhinged fabric acquisition strategy.

When my brain feels loud and life feels like it’s happening all at once, quilting is the one thing that reliably quiets everything down. Measuring, cutting, piecing, pressing—my thoughts don’t stand a chance against a quarter-inch seam allowance.

Quilting demands just enough focus to keep me out of my own head.

You can’t spiral while trying to line up points. You can’t overthink when the fabric is actively trying to slide away from you. Quilting insists on presence, whether you’re ready for it or not.

And it’s physical in the best way.

The weight of folded fabric. The snick of the rotary cutter. The iron hissing like it’s judging you. The steady hum of the machine. It’s impossible to doom-scroll while quilting—which is unfortunate for my phone, but excellent for my nervous system.

Quilting is different than other crafts.

This isn’t instant gratification. Quilts take time. Weeks. Months. Sometimes years. Quilting teaches patience through mild frustration and repeated seam ripping. It also teaches acceptance—because at some point you decide that seam is close enough and move on with your life.

Other crafts chase perfection. Quilting gently whispers, “No one will see that once it’s quilted.”

And then there’s the fabric.

I do not have a fabric stash. I have a fabric collection. A carefully curated, emotionally significant archive of potential futures. Each piece has a purpose. Not a plan—a purpose. There is a difference.

Fabric hoarding is not about excess. It’s about preparedness.

What if I need it for this quilt? What if I never find it again? What if I don’t use it for five years but then suddenly it’s PERFECT? These are valid concerns and I will not be taking questions at this time.

Quilting humbles you regularly.

You sew something wrong. You seam rip it. You sew it wrong again. You question all your life choices. Then somehow, miraculously, it comes together. Quilting is basically resilience training with cotton.

But here’s the thing—it works.

Some days I quilt for joy.

Some days I quilt because my emotions are doing parkour.

Some days I quilt because keeping a pile of fabric organized feels easier than organizing my thoughts.

Quilting doesn’t fix everything.

But it gives my hands something steady to do while my brain sorts itself out. It reminds me that progress can be slow and still be progress. That messy pieces can become something beautiful. That it’s okay to pause, adjust, and keep going.

I didn’t mean to sew my way to sanity.

But here I am—surrounded by fabric, half-finished quilts, and the quiet comfort of knowing that if nothing else makes sense today, I can always line up another seam.

And honestly?

That—and maybe just one more yard of fabric—is enough.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Choosing Intentional in the Middle of Chaos

I know we’re halfway through January and I’m just now trying to form coherent thoughts about everything that’s hit my world over the last few weeks—but bear with me.

My word for 2026 is intentional.

I intend (no pun intended) to keep that word front and center as a reminder that life only happens to me if I let it. If I hand over control of my emotions and thoughts to the things that scare me, then I’m the one who pays the biggest price. And since my emotions and thoughts have been in a pretty steady free fall since before Christmas, I clearly need that reminder.

Someone once said—at least Fred repeated it often—that when life stops changing, you get about the business of dying. I know that. Even with as much growth as I’ve had in therapy, change still rocks my world. Nothing triggers my depression and anxiety faster than everything around me shifting for reasons I didn’t choose and can’t control.

Right now, I’m standing in the middle of massive change and chaos at work and last week Lilah was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma. Either one of those alone would be enough to shake me. Both together have left me struggling to function… or even want to get out of bed.

Professionally, after almost 15 years in this place, I know I’ll be fine. Eventually.

Right now? I’d rather not be around anyone. I’m not fit company, and my patience is nonexistent.

My brain feels like someone dumped a bucket of ping-pong balls inside my head and then said, “Function as you normally would.”

Sometimes in life, you just get tired of operating at 200% when everyone around you struggles to hit 75% or to care as much as you do. But slacking off isn’t how I’m wired—no matter how bad I’m struggling. That’s the thing that keeps me being overlooked. Amy will always rise to the occasion no matter what.

And that’s exhausting.

Re: Lilah.

She is my baby. The other half of my heart.

We’ve lost so much in the last year—dog-wise—to cancer. Our vet firmly believes the surgery scheduled for the 23rd will put this monster to bed, but the fear is still there. We’ve already said goodbye to Paris and Hope because cancer and tumors won.

Does anyone really blame me for being just a little resistant to the idea that everything will be rosy?

I’m not sure any of this even makes sense, but the urge to get it out of my head and into written words was stronger than my need for polish. I’m carrying so many emotions right now.

Anger is at the top of the list. I’m tired of giving everything I have and being overlooked like paint on a wall.

Worry is right there with the anger.

Fear and anxiety have joined the line.

Tim would tell you depression is here too—and I know he’s right.

But circling back to my word.

Intentional.

I’m going to be intentional about how much I give.

Intentional about what I carry.

Intentional about where my energy goes.

Intentional about protecting the parts of me that are worn thin but still standing.

I don’t have answers. I don’t have clarity. I don’t even have peace right now.

But I do have intention—and for now, that’s enough to keep me trying to move forward.

Blessings y’all – Amy