This, too, shall pass.

That thing you thought was going to rip your heart out? It didn’t.

That thing you did that you were convinced was going to end your career? It didn’t.

That thing that gave you so much anxiety your heart felt like it was beating a million times a minute and might pop through your chest? It didn’t.

That person you thought you couldn’t live without? Turns out, you could.

Those friends who betrayed you and made you feel more alone than you ever thought friends could make you feel? Turns out, they needed to go anyway.

That mistake you replayed over and over in your head, convinced everyone else was thinking about it, too? They weren’t.

That season when you couldn’t see how anything was ever going to be okay again? Somehow, eventually, it was.

Life has a funny way of making whatever is happening right now feel permanent. Heartbreak feels permanent. Embarrassment feels permanent. Failure feels permanent. Fear feels permanent. But, very few things actually are.

Most of the things I was absolutely certain were going to destroy me have eventually become stories I can tell without my stomach hurting. Some of them are even funny now. Some taught me something, some redirected my entire life, and some were just shitty things that happened that I survived.

Maybe that’s one of the benefits of getting older… You accumulate evidence. Evidence that you’ve been scared before, wrong before, embarrassed yourself before, been vulnerable in a carnivirous crowd… you’ve trusted the wrong person before. You’ve made bad decisions before… had your heart broken before.

And somehow, you’re still here.

I once heard that we’re all about three bad decisions away from shitting in a bucket… and while that may not be the inspirational quote anyone is putting on a throw pillow, I think there’s something strangely comforting about it.

Life can unravel surprisingly fast. But it can also come back together surprisingly fast. So, if you’re only one bad decision in, calm down. You’ve still got two to go. And this one shall pass.

Deeper Than a Puddle

I had an interesting conversation with a guy friend the other day who said something that initially struck me as gross.

He said sometimes successful men throw money at women because they like having a pretty, perky, fun little thing bebopping around, giving them attention and making them feel good about themselves.  And if they have the money to spend, that’s what they spend it on.

I knew pretty privilege was real.  I’m just beginning to realize how much of an actual economy exists around it.

Maybe I never fully understood it because I’ve always valued my brain more than anything physical about me.  Maybe it’s because I know beauty is temporary.  Bodies change.  Faces age.  Novelty wears off.  Or maybe it’s because I’m a sapiosexual and I genuinely cannot imagine being deeply interested in someone who doesn’t interest my mind.

But I’m realizing I may have been making the mistake of assuming everyone is looking for depth.

They aren’t.

Some people aren’t looking for an intellectual equal, a great conversationalist, a challenging perspective, or someone who makes them think differently.  They want something pretty to look at.  Someone entertaining to be around.  Someone who makes them feel admired, desirable, important, young, powerful, or successful. They all sound like nice things to feel unless they’re purchased. Then they’re not authentic.

And apparently, some people are perfectly willing to pay for that transactional experience. It is the oldest industry around after all.

At first, I wanted to judge it as shallow.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized we all have our own currency, and we all have our own hobbies and vices.

Money is only one currency.

Beauty is currency.  Youth is currency.  Intelligence is currency.  Status is currency.  Attention is currency.  Access is currency.  Sex is currency.  Validation is currency.  Peace is currency.  And time may be the most expensive currency any of us possess.

We are all exchanging something. The difference is what we believe is worth the price.

Maybe that’s why I called this thing Deeper Than a Puddle in the first place.  I have never been particularly interested in what exists on the surface.  I want to know what happens when the pretty wears off, the money stops impressing you, the room gets quiet, and there’s nothing left to perform.

What is underneath all of it?

Because if I’m going to invest my time, energy, resources, loyalty, or love into another human being, there better be something down there worth diving for.

Maybe the lesson isn’t that everyone should want what I want. Maybe the lesson is recognizing that they don’t.

Some people want the ocean. Some people are perfectly happy playing in the puddle.

And if that’s where they’re having fun, maybe the mistake is expecting them to suddenly want to swim.

Push the Flywheel

“The quickest way to get something done is to stop waiting for someone else to do it.”

Over the years, I’ve watched countless projects and community initiatives come to life. I’ve also watched plenty of good ideas die. Surprisingly, most of them didn’t fail because they were bad ideas. They failed because they got stuck somewhere between the first conversation and the first action.

Everyone agreed something should happen. Everyone agreed it was a worthwhile goal. Everyone even agreed someone ought to do something. Then came the meetings, the discussions, the opinions, the “make me feel important” approvals, the revisions, and the unnecessary delays. Before long, more energy was being spent talking about the project than actually moving it forward.

Sometimes the greatest obstacle to progress isn’t opposition….It’s the endless pursuit of consensus and tug of war of who will get the credit instead who will do the actual work.

The truth is that getting something off the ground is rarely glamorous. It’s easy to show up once the crowds arrive. It’s easy to support an idea once it’s proven and it’s easy to take credit once momentum has already been created and the research is done. What people don’t always see is what happened before that momentum existed.

They don’t see the unanswered phone calls, the doors that closed, the hours spent digging in, questioning, troubleshooting, and trying again. They don’t see the moments when everyone else decided something couldn’t be done and moved on.

It starts with someone asking questions that nobody else is asking. Someone who refuses to accept answers that don’t make sense. Someone willing to keep digging when everyone else is satisfied with the explanation they were given. Someone who is so persistent that eventually people have no choice but to listen.

Most opportunities aren’t lost because they were impossible. They’re lost because people accepted the first obstacle as the final answer. They accepted “that’s just the way it is” when they should have asked one more question.

Sometimes it takes someone willing to look stubborn, persistent, annoying, and maybe even a little bitchy because they care more about finding a solution than being liked in the moment.

By the time it haslegs, the hardest part already happened. Someone pushed the flywheel when it wasn’t moving….and more often than not, that person simply refused to wait for somebody else to do it.

Protect Your Pollinators

It’s important to keep a watchful eye on what happens in the world we create for ourselves, both with how we live, where we live, and with whom we choose to do this life beside.

We can have beautiful flowers, a birdbath full of water, and a space built to attract life and peace….But if that water sits unattended too long, mosquitoes will find it.  And they’ll use that stagnant water to multiply while we’re not paying attention.

At first it doesn’t seem like a big deal….Maybe just a few.  But unintentional environments create the perfect place for blood suckers to grow.

This “I’ll deal with it when I have time” leads to the need for full blown foggers and chemicals to “fix” the problem…but that is when the pollinators disappear, too.

Honeybees do not stay in toxic environments waiting to die.  They leave.  And when the bees leave, eventually the sweetness leaves with them.  No pollination.  No thriving garden.  No fruit.  No flowers.  No honey.

Life works the same way.

If we allow chaos, constant takers, and draining people to quietly multiply around us unchecked, eventually they affect everything protecting us, too.  The people who bring peace, growth, encouragement, softness, and sweetness into our lives will slowly disappear because healthy things cannot thrive in environments overpowered by blood suckers.

And the only way to protect our pollinators is to give them a safe place to stay.

Once is enough.

In any relationship, romantic or platonic, love and respect show up not as grand gestures, but heavily in the number of times you have to say the same thing.

Once should be enough to say, “I trust you with something vulnerable” or “this matters to me.”

Love listens differently.  Love doesn’t look for loopholes…doesn’t minimize.  Love does not wait until it becomes convenient.  Love responds.

And when it doesn’t…what begins as patience slowly becomes tally marks.  Each reminder adds weight. And quietly and suddenly, resentment roots where inconsideration becomes predicable.

We should not have to manage someone’s memory or negotiate their motivation and being heard should not equal being a nag.

The reminders, hints, and huffs are not the tell. The amount of time your brain is quiet in the peace their presence creates in your life is. And when done well, once is enough.

The 45 Year Old 2nd Birthday Dollar

A friend said to me Saturday “…unfortunately we are on the side of life where we will start to see more death,” after talking of a high school friend’s passing and I’ve been digging up memories ever since, reliving happy moments and accepting her hard truth of this phase of life.

Tonight as I’m going through boxes of old photos, I find a box I packed up in 1998 when I moved from my parents’ house that hasn’t been opened since and it had the sweetest 2nd birthday card from my great grandmother (my mother’s mother’s mother) addressed to me with the signature birthday dollar still in it right next to a yellow crocheted doll she made for me.

Postmarked February 25, 1981, and delivered to me USPS from the house I remember in Chickasaw for $.15 with handwriting that reminded me she was already aging by the time I was born, and the word “belated card” written above the greeting because she knew she missed it. She added the note “I love you little one and want to see you. MaMa Hearn xxxxxx” and sealed it with a crisp 1977 dollar bill from her purse inside.

I’m not sure if what made me cry was to touch the dollar bill she touched that hasn’t been handled for 45 years or to simply read a note written just for me from someone long gone for the first time 45 years later, but either way I did. It felt good to get a warm hug from her spirit and to hold the doll she so lovingly crocheted with her hands just for me.

That God wink reminded me that even after death we can still feel the love of the ones who aren’t with is any more…maybe in a bird, a song, or even a 44 years and 11 months old 2nd birthday card.

A Forever Reference of Unconditional Love

6 years ago on this day I wrote about the day my Papa passed and today I’m putting it here for my grandkids to see when they’re older.

I never truly envisioned what Mary looked like when Jesus died until I saw my grandmother quietly lean over my grandfather and softly weep as God welcomed him into Heaven. Hearing her pray and thank Jesus for every moment they had, for his life with her and the family they created together was just beautiful.

Being there when someone passes on is special, it’s something I prayed God would give to my kids and me and He graciously did. Being able to witness a love that runs so deeply and pure in a marriage your whole entire life is one of life’s most precious gifts, it’s just not a gift you know to ask for for yourself. But God gave it to me anyway. The immeasurable honor of being witness to their marriage, seeing the respect they had for each other and the love between them has been a blessing I can’t explain.

Tonight I am especially praising God for the gift He so graciously handed me in being their grandchild and all the experiences that came with it. Most of all I am thanking God for providing me a forever reference on the art of unconditional love.

Curtis & Betty White

What 2025 Taught Me About Love, Effort, and Being Someone’s Medicine

2025 taught me a lot about how people give and receive love. I learned the real differences between avoidant personalities and anxious lean-ins. I was schooled in mismatched effort, watched past untreated trauma hijack the present, and got uncomfortably close to a few runners along the way.

Something I’ve noticed in my 40s is how often I try to fix things that aren’t actually my responsibility. The tricky part about being the revealer, the make-it-happen-er, or the compulsive helper is that it feels like a deep bond to the one doing the giving…and like a ten-day antibiotic to the one getting “fixed.”

People will absolutely let you be their medicine.

They’ll let you drive to them, give your time, donate your talent, buy for them, fix things for them, pour into them, talk them up, build it, write it, design it, clean it…whatever you’re good at. And as long as you don’t show them your needs, you’ll have what looks like a wonderful relationship blooming…right up until your resources are used up.

That tight, sour feeling in your face, the one that makes you scowl when you think about how poorly they treat you the moment you stop performing – that hits like rejection. It’s the rejection our inner people-pleaser child managed to delay and hoped to avoid with all the good deeds and “I helped” gestures.

So what if we normalized internally auditing why we do things for people?

It isn’t always altruistic. Sometimes we’re auditioning, hoping our super-awesome effort earns us a main-character role in someone else’s life. And sometimes we truly give simply because we can, with no expectation of return – the healthiest version we can only really do by being the healthiest version of us.

But all the time, we need a safe place to be imperfectly human. A place to mess up, have needs, cry, and let someone else extend their resources to us….fill our cup, too.

Health-check yourself before choosing whose medicine you take, so you know how much of yours you can give, and where it will actually do the most good. Health-check your relationship with God first…there’s a great chance you have a God sized hole you’re trying to fill with acts of service.

The goal isn’t to stop giving or to love less, it’s to give from a place where you’re also allowed to be held, loved, fulfilled, and at peace with the outcome.

Peripheral Vision

It’s a slippery slope imagining what you “deserve” – but there’s a point in life where you do realize what you need and that should be completely congruent with what you actually do expect to get out of the ones you call “friend.“

A few of those things may include loyalty, consideration, kindness…if you’re lucky add generosity of time and resources.

So what happens in our relationships when our basic needs of loyalty and consideration are forgotten, disregarded, or considered “unwarranted” by the ones we most expect them to be seen from?

They suffer. They change. They degrade and downward spiral. They need conversation and healing and time does not fix that shit. Hard conversations, vulnerability, and the talent to see a concept just beyond your peripheral vision does.

Taking the time to took left and right into your blind spaces of the friendships you cherish is an outstanding quality in a human. May we all have the energy to do so and may we all be afforded the time….and when we are afforded those words may we respond with truth and transparency.

Old Bill…New Account

If you’ve lived long enough as an adult, you’ve experienced some relationships that just seem to accumulate debt. The kind where the other person took more than they deserved or maybe didn’t give enough to keep their relational credit up.

But what about the new relationships? The ones where you don’t have any debts or overdue bills…No long pattern of unmet expectations to suffocate your need to be seen or heard.

Be cautious not to allow a bad debt affect another person’s chance to build credit with you. Learn the red flags but don’t get so wrapped up in expecting to be disappointed that you miss a whole chance to be loved well and finally charge off the bad debt from those old relational accounts.

You’ll be happier when you learn to look for and appreciate the good qualities instead of magnifying the flaws or maybe even making them up.

Greenwashing

Greenwashing is when when companies make misleading statements about their actions to appear more environmentally friendly than they actually are. Usually they do this so they can get something passed with the government (or maybe it is the actual government) so they’re supported by the public and affiliates.

In our private lives, it’s called virtue-signaling. Being vague about our flaws, which we all have, signaling others to our good deeds and virtuous behavior because it feels good and fills the need for affirmation as a basic human desire to be accepted and supported.

We. Have. All. Done. This. I don’t know one person who is passionate about their stance who doesn’t want people to buy into it with them as a show of majority support. It feels good to have a team behind us. Feels good to be chosen. Feels good to think we’re absolutely correct.

So what’s the responsibility of the ones being signaled? Listen. Question. Verify. Usually the truth is hidden so deep in the middle we render ourselves wrong if we align too closely with one myopic viewpoint. It’s basically a burden of self control to repress emotions in cases like these. What if the one signaling is someone we love? A close friend or family member? What if we’re unintentionally siding with something destructive or in cooperate cases, actually damaging?

Due diligence is the act of taking a comprehensive (including all elements) look at something before you buy it. If you don’t do this in real estate, you’re stuck with those problems after you close. “Caveat” (warning) “Emptor” (purchaser) is what the state of Alabama adopted, meaning you’re taking a big risk not looking into things before you buy them.

Or in life…before you buy into them. So our responsibility is to do our best to pray for discernment, discover truth, eliminate hate, promote healing, and not make things worse. And this is probably the biggest human burden of all…because sometimes it’s not what’s easy or fun or even convenient.

So when we signal…if we have those people in our lives who do question and verify our motives…keep us in check and on a path of truth and healing…we should consider ourselves blessed and fortunate even if it feels bad that they don’t pile on.