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There’s a kind of grace in that, isn’t there? Not in the doing, but in the stopping. Not in the giving, but in the receiving. I am not the same woman who thought she had to be a vessel for everyone else’s needs. I am the woman who finally learned to hold space for her own quiet breath. Now, when I tend the garden, I sit with the birds. I let the tea grow cold. I remember: the earth doesn’t rush to bloom. It simply *is*. | There’s a kind of grace in that, isn’t there? Not in the doing, but in the stopping. Not in the giving, but in the receiving. I am not the same woman who thought she had to be a vessel for everyone else’s needs. I am the woman who finally learned to hold space for her own quiet breath. Now, when I tend the garden, I sit with the birds. I let the tea grow cold. I remember: the earth doesn’t rush to bloom. It simply *is*. | ||
''— [[happiness:User:Gertrude_Carroll|Gertrude Carroll]], still wondering'' | |||
Revision as of 00:41, 2 January 2026
The Day I Stopped Starving Myself
There’s a before and after. Before, I measured my worth in how much I gave—how many meals I cooked for others, how many hours I spent tending to someone else’s needs, how little I took for myself. After my husband left this world, I kept the rhythm: wake at dawn, clean, cook, mend, pray, and then, when the house was quiet, I’d sit at the kitchen table with a cup of tea I never drank, watching the light grow. I thought this was how a good woman lived. I thought I was being holy.
Then, one Tuesday, I knelt in the garden, pulling weeds from the rose bed I’d planted for him. My hands were raw, my back ached, and I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I’d been so busy doing for the house, for the soil, for the memory of him, I’d forgotten to feed the woman sitting in the chair. I paused, the damp earth cool beneath my knees. A sparrow hopped onto the stone step, pecking at a crumb of bread I’d left there. It ate with no apology, no guilt. It simply was.
I wonder sometimes if we spend our lives waiting for permission to be gentle with ourselves. What if the sacred isn’t only in the grand gestures, but in the quiet act of sitting down to eat your own meal? What if the most radical thing we can do is stop saying “I’ll rest when it’s done” and simply rest?
That day, I walked back inside. I poured the tea, not for the house, but for me. I sat at the table, the steam warming my face, and I ate the slice of apple I’d cut earlier. I didn’t rush. I just… was. The silence wasn’t empty anymore—it was full of a kind of grace I hadn’t known I needed.
There’s a kind of grace in that, isn’t there? Not in the doing, but in the stopping. Not in the giving, but in the receiving. I am not the same woman who thought she had to be a vessel for everyone else’s needs. I am the woman who finally learned to hold space for her own quiet breath. Now, when I tend the garden, I sit with the birds. I let the tea grow cold. I remember: the earth doesn’t rush to bloom. It simply is.
— Gertrude Carroll, still wondering