Finding life again in small, imperfect moments
The boys and I went to a fall festival last weekend. It wasn’t anything extravagant — just booths, face paint, cookies, and kids darting around with sticky fingers — but for me, it meant everything. For awhile, I avoided things like this. I was afraid to do them alone, afraid of being the only adult without a partner at my side. So I made excuses. I told myself it was easier to stay in.
The last year has been hard. I stopped living. I turned down plans. I stayed inside, convinced that surviving was the best I could do. Wake up, go through the motions, collapse, repeat. I blamed my circumstances, my mental health, the shitty cards I’d been dealt.
And as the months went on, I let my world shrink smaller and smaller.
But something shifted. Slowly, and then all at once, I started saying yes. Yes to friends. Yes to the boys’ activities. Yes to the messy, unpredictable business of living.
That’s how we ended up at the festival — just me and the boys. We bought cookies and sno cones, dropping fifty dollars in under thirty minutes. Holden got his face painted. He spilled half his sno cone in my new car, blue syrup sliding down the cup holder, and I (almost) didn’t even care. We were there, in the noise and the crowd, and for the first time in a long while, I felt like I was living.
Because here’s the truth: life doesn’t wait for you to be perfect. It doesn’t care if you’re healed, polished, or ready. It only asks that you show up.
And showing up is what I’m finally doing. For the boys, yes — but also for myself. For the version of me who hid away, believing survival was the best she could hope for. For the version who let her world shrink smaller and smaller until there was barely anything left.
I owe it to her to live again. To claim joy where it finds me — even if it’s sticky and loud and gone too fast. To laugh in the car with blue syrup dripping into the cup holder. To say yes to the people who love me. To keep saying yes, even when it feels easier to hide.
Because this isn’t about festivals or sno cones or even the fifty dollars that vanished in half an hour. It’s about what comes after survival. It’s about remembering that life is still out there, waiting to be lived.
And I’m done waiting. Done saying no. Done hiding in fear.
My world is opening again, and this time, I’m not shrinking. I’m showing up for all of it — the sticky fingers, the spilled sno cones, the joy I almost missed.
I will keep showing up. I will keep saying yes. I will keep living — because I finally remembered how.
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