in and through the body

I got home late Sunday afternoon, the kind of late where the house smells like dinner left too long on the counter and everyone’s pajamas are halfway through the wash. I dropped my bag by the door, took a slow, deep breath, and just stood there for a moment, letting the familiar hum of my people wrap around me. There’s something about that—coming back into the rhythm of home after a few days away. It’s grounding. It’s soft. It reminds me who I am when I’m not wearing the hat of “all the things” for anyone else.

Then I ran a bath, the kind that you have to let fill to the top, the water hot enough to pull the tightness from your shoulders. Baths have always been my reset button. They wash off the stories I’ve carried, the weight of other people’s expectations, the tension I didn’t even know I was holding. This weekend, I needed it more than usual.

There’s something about stepping out of the regular rhythm, stepping into a few days of quiet focus, that lets you notice all the layers you’ve been carrying. The layers you didn’t even know you were wearing, held there like armor. We laughed. We sat with the quiet. We noticed ourselves—sometimes messy, sometimes tender, sometimes raw. And yes, there were moments that took your breath away in a good way and others that landed a little too hard. That’s how you know you’re touching something real.

But here’s the thing I keep returning to: the real work doesn’t happen in the quiet rooms or the carefully curated practices. It happens in the leftover mess of life—the school drop-offs, the dishes, the text that comes through just when you feel stretched too thin. It’s in the tiny choices: the pause before reacting, the willingness to sit with discomfort, the breath when you feel yourself tensing. That’s the practice—the living-it-out part that makes the quiet, beautiful weekend moments actually stick.

Coming home reminded me that life is mostly these small, messy, human moments. And it’s here, in these ordinary spaces, that we get to try again. To show up as ourselves, a little more grounded, a little softer, a little more honest. There’s grace in it, but there’s grit too. There’s remembering. There’s forgetting. And then there’s remembering all over again.

I’m grateful for the time I had this weekend. For the people who reminded me how possible it is to be seen, to hold space for yourself, and to step back into the world a little lighter than before. And as always, it’s a reminder: take the time to listen, take the time to notice, and don’t forget the small practices that keep you steady through the day-to-day.