For years, my life felt like sprinting on a treadmill. Running as hard as I could, desperate to get somewhere different, only to look down and realize I was standing in the same place.

Now it feels like I stepped off the treadmill and onto one of those moving walkways in an airport. Somehow, I’m moving faster while working so much less.

Not less in life. Less to be understood.

The treadmill was never one person, or one relationship, or one season. It was the ground I kept ending up on.

Growing up, I didn’t know I had a voice worth using. Instead, I made my voice into whatever others wanted to hear, hoping that meant they wouldn’t leave. I learned early that people come and go, that love felt conditional, and decided the safest thing I could do was become whatever a person wanted me to be.

I learned to disappear to be kept.

I did it with everyone.

I even did it with God.

In Sunday school rooms, in friendships, in places I was supposed to feel safe, the lesson was the same: some feelings were dangerous, and being wanted mattered more than being known. I carried it into every room after, and for years, I mistook it for the way the world simply worked.

I woke up to an empty(ish) house for the second morning today. My five-month-old son and two pups are here, all three sleeping peacefully while a light rain hits the roof.

Ahhhhhhhhh.

I exhale air from the base of my lungs that likely entered my body many months ago. The realization of its exit is both refreshing and torturing. Only now, in this stillness, can I feel how wound up my body has been.

I keep glancing outside to take in the scenery. An even thin layer of clouds covers the sky, filtering the harsh sunlight of the last few days. It provides a gentle grey backdrop contrasted with bright green grass, fresh from the rain. It’s an atmosphere my soul resonates with.

My favorite “chill” album plays in the background while I sip my bougie single-origin cup of Ethiopian coffee. The last time I played it on repeat like this was a few years ago when I escaped to Maine on a solo trip. I had needed a brief getaway from day-to-day life that had become nearly unmanageable.

The trip came a little over a year after our first son joined our home. Becoming a mom for the first time to a kid with seven years of life already under his belt wasn’t as glorious as Instagram made it look. My heart was fully swooned by him – yet that didn’t erase the trauma of his past or present circumstances – trauma that would soon bring unexplored traumas to the surface for my husband and me.

Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest things for us adults, aren’t they?

Trusting.

Forgiving.

Letting go.

Accepting.

Believing.

Relaxing.

I’ve found the older I get, the more complicated those things become. Shouldn’t it be opposite? Shouldn’t growing up and maturing mean getting better at this whole life thing?

But when I think about someone who is able to do all of those things well – trust, forgive, let go, accept, believe, relax…the first picture that comes to mind is that of a child.

A kid.

To be more specific, I think of the kid that was a part of the family next to me at the public pool last summer (side-note: the public pool is a miserable experience past the age of 13). This little boy, probably six, embodied many of these words within just a few minutes.

It all started when he and his little brother, maybe four years old, were taking turns jumping off the side of the pool into their dad’s arms. And by “taking turns” I mean the younger brother kept taking his turn and cutting off Johny (yes, I just named the older one Johny because, well, that’s just a classic kid name and it felt right).