Permission to Love Your Actual Life
When Did It Hit You?
When did you accept that in the glut of all you cannot know or decide, you have a small but meaningful say in how some of it plays out? I wonder if it happened the first night you slept alone in an empty house, double- checking the locks, falling asleep to a soundtrack of ill intent.
The Moments That Knocked the Wind Out of You
Perhaps it was the moment you looked hard at the face of someone or something you love—your home, your spouse, your church—and realized you had never really known them. Belonging had always been a mirage, only made “real” through the twisted alliance of UV rays and air pollution. Some rainbows, you learned, are only beautiful from a safe distance.
There was also the day, perhaps, when you looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize yourself, which seemed like only months after you paid off your student loans and simultaneously realized you loathed your vocation. You’d squeezed every drop from your God-given superpowers only to realize you’re entirely expendable.
Maybe summer arrived like an exhale but left you bruised. The long-awaited fat tomato season of your dreams spiraled into fermenting blackberries and bad beans.
You bear the weight, and you bear it, and you bow until you almost snap.
The Shedding We Can’t Stop
The deal is, we are always shedding, always turning. It happens when we’re staring straight into the sun of our fragile, juicy lives; half comatose from the redundancy, our nervous systems charred, our cheeks flushed from the synchronous crush of the best sort of luck. Everything at once.
Time, tragedy, and a bounty of impossible graces converge into one solitary beam of understanding, cutting through the confusion of the days.
This Is Your Actual Life
This is my actual life.
This changes things. Every broken relic, blown-out birthday candle, and bland evening led you to this place. Do you dare adore it?
There is so much we cannot control.
Finding Your Counterweights
But there are other things we can control. Woven into the fabric of our days are counterweights that help level the load of this mad too-muchness.
We can find them. Dust them off. Name them.
We can strike matches against their sturdy edges, hurl them into the sky, and follow them like starlight through our darkest nights.
This Is the Moment
Yes, it’s disorienting, most days. It’s often overwhelming. Yet here we are, center stage in our personal melodramas, with no more time to slough off while we wait for things to be different.
This is the moment we’ve been given, only this one. But this one, right here, is the one that matters. This is the one we can wrap our warm hands around and shape into something useful for the expedition of now—
a shovel, a mug, a pillow, a hug.
No one can love your life for you.
This is your actual life. What are you going to do with it?
Reflection: What moment this week reminded you that you have a say? It doesn’t have to be big — a choice you made, a boundary you held, or a grace you finally let in.
If you liked this blog, check out Counterweights by Shannan Martin. We love how she brings to light the small, steady graces hiding in the chaos of everyday life — and reminds us that even when the world feels like too much, we still have a say.
Shannan Martin is the bestselling author of several books, including Start with Hello, and the popular Substack The Soup. She is a speaker and writer who found her voice in the country and her story in the city. Shannan works as a cook at The Window, a local nonprofit dedicated to feeding its community. She and her family live as grateful neighbors in Goshen, Indiana. Find her on Instagram @shannanwrites.
