Still Something to Fight For
It’s been a long week that spilled into the weekend. The kind where the world feels chaotic even if your own house is still standing. Where the noise outside your bubble presses in and you realize how much effort it takes just to stay regulated.
I had therapy last Friday, and somewhere between talking things through and sitting quietly afterward, a few things clicked. One was practical: passports feel like a must for our family. Not out of panic—just preparedness. A calm acknowledgment that while we don’t control the world, we can be intentional about how we move through it. The other was more internal: the cave I’ve been trying so hard to dig myself out of wasn’t so bad after all.
There’s a strange peace that comes from recognizing what you can’t control. The big things. The global things. The things you can either carry endlessly or hold with prayer, intention, and boundaries. Knowing where my responsibility ends has helped me breathe again. What’s been harder is the constant exposure.
I know it matters to pay attention. To share the news. To not look away. But I also know how quickly our feeds can become a loop of heartbreak, especially when the algorithm keeps handing it back to us because we paused, or cared, or tried to stay informed. I feel that tension constantly—wanting to witness without drowning.
Our bodies weren’t built to live on cortisol alone. We can’t survive indefinitely in fight-or-flight, soaked in sadness and urgency, without it changing us. Without it changing how we show up for our kids, for each other, for ourselves.
I’ve learned—personally—that this is the goal of a narcissist: exhaustion. To keep you so overwhelmed by chaos that you lose your ability to think clearly, imagine something better, or rebuild what’s been damaged. And that’s the danger. Because when we lose our ability to imagine something better, we stop fighting—not because we don’t care, but because we’re convinced there’s no point. That there’s nothing left to fight for.
But the truth is, we have so much to fight for. Our children. Our communities. Our humanity. Our capacity to rebuild what’s been damaged.
That’s why balance matters. Not avoidance. Not denial. Balance.
What if we flooded our feeds with both the truth and the joy? The grief and the reminders of what’s still good? Because when this chapter ends—and it will, because all things do—how will we remember what hope felt like if we never let ourselves feel it now?
Joy isn’t ignorance. It’s fuel.
I was talking about something else in therapy this week too—because of course I was—my relationship with my dad. (Yes, I have daddy issues. But in my defense, they’re not just because of him.) Our relationship has always lived at arm’s length. We don’t talk much. We’re cordial. He didn’t text my daughter right away on her birthday, but when I reminded him, he did—and used the nickname he’s always called her, like muscle memory kicked in. He mailed our Christmas presents even though he lives forty minutes away, but filled the box with all the German treats I loved as a kid. I thought he didn’t get Evelyn anything at all, until a Highlights magazine showed up in the mail last week. When I sent him a video of her saying thank you, he told me he thought she’d enjoy getting something every month, just for her.
It’s not the connection I want. But it is the connection he’s capable of giving. And oddly enough, that’s helped me see what’s happening in the world right now with a little more clarity. A lot of people are showing up imperfectly. Awkwardly. Sideways. Not with the sweeping care we wish for, but with small gestures that still mean something. It doesn’t excuse harm. It doesn’t mean we stop asking for better. But it does remind me that recognizing what is being offered can help us stay human while we keep pushing for more.
For me, joy shows up in the smallest places. Like Evelyn telling me I make her feel “pink” after reading her new emotions book. Or her calling her older sister, completely unprompted, “you little rascal!” Moments so ordinary they almost slip past unless you’re paying attention.
Those moments don’t cancel out the hard things. They don’t fix the world. But they remind me why staying soft matters. Why speaking up is worth it. Why rebuilding is even possible.
The world is loud right now. But we don’t have to drown in it. We can tell the truth and protect our nervous systems at the same time. We can speak up and rest. We can grieve and still make room for joy.
Silence can be dangerous—but so can despair. Refusing both is an act of care.
Still me. Still here. Still choosing softness—not because I don’t see what’s happening, but because I do. Still believing there is something better worth imagining. Still knowing there is so much to fight for.
And if all else fails, I suppose there’s always the possibility that hope shows up quietly in the mail once a month—no reminder required.
So I’ll end this the only way I know how right now — with a prayer.
Not for answers.
Not for clarity on the path or the plan.
But for peace.
If not peace in the world outside — which feels loud and fractured and heavy — then peace within us.
For the people carrying anger they don’t know where to put.
For the ones grieving quietly.
For those trying to stay soft without breaking.
May we remember that even when we don’t understand the path, we are not walking it alone.
That something bigger than us is holding the long view — even when all we can see is the next hard step.
May we trust that nothing is wasted.
That even the hurt, the fear, the anger — when faced honestly — can shape something better in us.
Kinder. Wiser. More awake.
And maybe, through all of this, we don’t become louder or harder —
but better.
Better neighbors.
Better parents.
Better humans.
People who remember that strength isn’t who we defeat, but how we care for one another.
That wholeness isn’t certainty, but compassion.
That what makes us us is our humanity.
May we find moments of rest.
Moments of joy.
Moments of hope — even small ones.
And may we land, when we need to, in a softer place.
Amen.
Or peace.
Or simply… may it be so.
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