Tag: fatherhood

What I’m No Longer Carrying

For a long time, I carried things because someone had to.

That was the logic. If something was falling apart, if someone was overwhelmed, if the situation felt fragile, I stepped in. I absorbed it. I adjusted. I stayed alert. I made room. I told myself that this was responsibility—that this was what showing up looked like.

Some of that was true.

Some of it wasn’t.

Over time, the line blurred between what was mine to carry and what I had simply gotten used to holding. Emotional states. Unspoken expectations. Outcomes I couldn’t control but still felt responsible for. There was a constant, ambient tension—always needing to be ready for the next shift, the next reaction, the next thing that might go wrong. Being “on” stopped being situational and became the default.

It didn’t happen because I wanted control. It happened because I wanted stability. I wanted things to hold together, and for a while, carrying more felt like the only way to keep everything from tipping.

But carrying everything has a cost.

It erodes attention and narrows patience. It leaves no space for rest that actually rests. Even when the day ended, nothing was really finished. I was still holding the weight of what might come next.

Learning what’s enough forced a reckoning with that pattern. Not everything I was carrying was necessary. Not everything was sustainable. And not everything was actually helping, even if it felt like it was. Some things were never mine to begin with.

I can care deeply without carrying everything. I can show up without absorbing the full emotional weight of every situation. I can be responsible without being the shock absorber. That distinction matters now.

I’m no longer carrying the need to fix what I can’t fix, or outcomes that don’t belong to me, or the expectation that being available means being endlessly available. Putting those things down doesn’t make me indifferent. It makes me more grounded.

What I’m carrying now is smaller—heavier in some ways, but clearer about where it belongs. Showing up for my son. Being present for my goddaughter. Keeping the day honest and contained. Doing what’s in front of me, and letting the rest stay where it is.

I still feel the pull to pick everything back up. Old habits don’t disappear quietly. But I’m learning to notice that urge for what it is—a reflex from a time when carrying more felt like survival.

It isn’t anymore.

I’m not done learning where the boundaries are. I still misjudge sometimes. I still overreach. But I’m paying attention now, and that changes things. What I’m no longer carrying isn’t gone forever—it’s just no longer automatic.

And that feels like a different kind of strength.

Learning What’s Enough

Enough used to feel like settling.

Like lowering the bar. Like admitting I couldn’t handle more. Enough was what you accepted when the bigger version of your life didn’t work out the way you planned.

After a year of loss, and at the beginning of a year of transition, that definition doesn’t hold anymore.

Now, enough feels different.

Enough doesn’t mean the days are easy. Most days, I still end them depleted. I give what I have, and there usually isn’t much left afterward. But the exhaustion feels proportionate now. It matches the effort. I end the day tired, not defeated.

Before, I was always behind. No matter how much I did, it never felt like enough. There was always another emotional demand waiting, another situation to manage, another moment where I had to stay alert. I was never really off. Even rest required vigilance.

Now, the days still ask for everything I have. But when they end, I can tell myself the truth: I showed up. I did what needed to be done. I’m not carrying the constant sense that I failed simply because I ran out of capacity.

Enough isn’t having energy left over.

Enough is being able to stop without guilt.

It’s not about having fewer responsibilities. It’s about having responsibilities with edges. They’re clearer now. Narrower. More specific. Showing up for my son. Being present for my goddaughter. Keeping the day moving forward without asking it to carry more than it can.

Enough isn’t ambitious. It isn’t impressive. It doesn’t photograph well.

Enough is when the weight of the day matches the strength I have available to carry it.

That balance used to feel like compromise. Now it feels like alignment.

I still want things. I still imagine futures that look different from this one. But I’m no longer measuring the present against a version of life that no longer exists. I’m measuring it against reality.

Enough doesn’t mean I’m done growing. It means I’m done chasing the wrong scale.

Some days, enough is patience.

Some days, it’s endurance.

Some days, it’s simply making it through without feeling like I failed.

Enough will change. It has to.

But learning what enough feels like has given me something I didn’t have before: a way to recognize when a day actually fits.

And for now, that’s enough.

Finding My Footing

I didn’t notice the ground at first.

There was no moment where things clicked into place. No deep breath followed by relief. No sense that I had made it through something. If anything, it was the opposite. The days just stopped surprising me in quite the same way.

That’s how footing arrived.

After a year where everything felt unstable, predictability began to creep back in. Not because life got easier, but because fewer things changed from one day to the next. The shape of my days started to repeat. Mornings followed a familiar pattern. Appointments landed where I expected them to. Fewer decisions felt urgent. Fewer moments demanded that I brace for impact.

It didn’t feel like progress. It felt quiet.

I noticed it first in my body. My shoulders weren’t as tight. I wasn’t flinching every time my phone buzzed. I slept a little more, not well, but better than before. My body figured it out before my mind did. Something had shifted. The ground wasn’t solid, but it wasn’t moving under my feet every time I stepped.

That’s when I realized I was finding my footing.

Not everywhere. Not all at once. Just in enough places that I wasn’t constantly correcting myself mid-step.

A lot of that steadiness came from the things that didn’t move.

My son’s needs didn’t pause while everything else changed. Neither did my goddaughter’s. School still started at the same time. Appointments still had to be made and kept. Medications still needed to be managed. Meals still needed to happen. Dogs still needed to be walked.

There was no room to wait for clarity.

Parenting didn’t provide answers, but it provided structure. It gave the day edges. It gave me somewhere to put my weight. Showing up wasn’t heroic or meaningful in the way people sometimes describe. It was necessary. It was grounding.

Some things didn’t shift. I built around them.

That responsibility didn’t make life lighter, but it made it steadier. It pulled me out of my head and back into the day in front of me. It narrowed my focus in a way that helped. When everything else felt provisional, the kids anchored the present.

Finding my footing didn’t mean feeling safe. It didn’t mean feeling confident. It didn’t mean believing the worst was over.

It meant knowing where I could stand.

There are still plenty of places where the ground feels uneven. There are still unknowns that sit just outside the frame of my days. There are still moments where I feel the urge to brace, to anticipate, to prepare for something I can’t name yet.

But I’m not slipping the way I was before.

I’m not steady everywhere. But I know where the ground holds.

For now, that’s enough.