By Trina Trammell
I didn’t plan to write this today, but something in me feels ready to be honest.
Lately, life has felt quieter in a way I didn’t expect. Not empty… just softer.
Like I’ve stepped out of a version of myself that was always bracing, always holding, always preparing for what could go wrong.
There was a time I thought that was strength.
And maybe it was.
It carried me through things I never imagined I would survive.
But I am no longer in that same place.
I have known deep loss.
I have known years of learning myself through love, through marriage, through becoming.
I have known what it means to keep going when everything in you wants to pause.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped asking myself how to survive and started asking myself how to live.
Now, I am learning something different.
I am learning what it feels like to be cared for.
To let go of control.
To stop performing strength in order to feel safe.
To allow softness without guilt.
There is a version of me that used to believe rest had to be earned.
That love had to be managed.
That life had to be held tightly or it would fall apart.
I don’t live there anymore.
I find myself moving slower now.
Thinking less in urgency and more in presence.
Allowing myself to be supported instead of constantly being the support.
And even though this is what I once longed for, it still feels like an adjustment, like my nervous system is learning a new language.
Softness is not passive.
It is unfamiliar in a world that rewarded my survival.
But I am beginning to understand something: I do not have to stay “strong” to be worthy of love.
Or presence.
Or peace.
I do not have to carry everything to be valuable.
I do not have to stay on ten to prove I am alive.
I am allowed to simply be here.