What We Carry

 

The older I get, the less interested I am in being right about people. I’d rather be careful with them.

It’s easy to look at someone’s actions and decide who they are. It’s harder to remember that we’re only seeing a chapter, not the whole story. We don’t know what kind of love they grew up with, what fears they carry, or what they’re still trying to protect. Sometimes people become controlling because they were never given certainty. Sometimes they need to be seen because they’ve spent a lifetime feeling invisible. Sometimes they hurt others without even realizing it.

Understanding someone’s story doesn’t excuse the pain they cause. Some boundaries are still necessary. Some distance is still healthy. But I’ve learned that I don’t have to choose between protecting my peace and keeping my compassion.

We rarely know what shaped someone’s heart. But we always get to decide what shapes ours.

I hope life never hardens me into believing that the only way to survive is to become less kind. If anything, I hope it teaches me to be gentler without becoming naive, to have boundaries without losing empathy, and to remember that the way I treat people says far more about me than the way they treat me.

What Did You Lose Between 2020 and 2025?

 

Today, I stumbled upon an Instagram post that simply asked, “What did you lose between 2020 and 2025?”

At first, I thought the answer would be easy. Time, maybe. A few opportunities.. But the longer I sat with the question, the more I realized I hadn’t really lost things. I had slowly let go of the life I thought I would have by now.

Somewhere between those years, I lost the certainty that life would unfold the way I imagined it would. I watched my dad become someone I barely recognized after his stroke. I watched my mom quietly rearrange her life around his, until caring for him became part of her everyday routine. I watched my brother stay home to help take care of our dad instead of leaving for college.

It wasn’t the life I had imagined for any of us..

I celebrated another wedding anniversary, realizing that some milestones arrive on time, while others don’t. And through it all, life kept asking me to keep going—to show up for work, to laugh with friends, to make plans, even when some parts of my heart were still waiting.

Looking back now, I don’t think those years only took things away. They also gave me a gentler way of looking at life. They taught me that not every unanswered prayer is a forgotten one, and not every delay is a sign that life has stopped moving. Hope looks different these days. It’s quieter than it used to be, but it’s still here. If you asked me again what I lost between 2020 and 2025, I’d probably say this: I lost the version of me who thought life had to happen on my timeline. I still miss her sometimes. But I think the person I’m becoming is learning to trust a different one.

A Quiet Kind of Grief

this morning, I came across a post from a colleague. She wrote about losing her baby.

I sat there for a while, reading every word. My heart broke for her. I can’t imagine the weight of carrying a life, only to have to say goodbye before ever getting the chance to know them.

And then, almost immediately, I felt sad for myself too..

It felt strange admitting that. Almost unfair.

Because how do you grieve for something you’ve never had?

I’ve never seen two lines on a pregnancy test. I’ve never heard a heartbeat through an ultrasound. I’ve never had a miscarriage. There isn’t a date on the calendar that marks a loss, because there was never a beginning to lose.

Yet somehow, there is still grief.

Not the grief of losing a child, because I know those are two different kinds of pain. I would never pretend they are the same.

This grief is quieter.

It lives in the months that begin with hope and end with another period. In the questions people ask without thinking. In the way I catch myself wondering what our child would have looked like whenever I see my husband laughing. In every birthday and anniversary that quietly reminds me that time keeps moving, even when a dream feels like it’s standing still.

This year, my husband and I are on our way to six years of marriage.

Six years isn’t a measure of how much we love each other. If anything, we’ve learned to love each other in ways we never expected. We’ve learned that marriage isn’t only about celebrating what comes easily. Sometimes it’s about learning how to carry what never arrives.

People often imagine waiting as something active…counting days, making plans, crossing off milestones.

But this kind of waiting is mostly invisible.

You still go to work. You answer emails. You laugh with friends over coffee. You celebrate other people’s babies because you genuinely are happy for them. And somehow, in the quiet moments between ordinary days, you carry a question that has no timeline.

Maybe that’s why my colleague’s words stayed with me.

Her grief had a name.

Mine is harder to explain.

But perhaps both were born from the same place: love. One from loving someone she had to let go of. The other from loving someone I haven’t had the chance to meet.

I don’t know if that someone will ever exist outside my imagination.

I only know that, somehow, I’ve been loving them for a long time.