This past week, nothing happened.
No conversations that shifted the trajectory. No clarity. No relief. No emotional breakthroughs pretending to be answers.
Just evenings. Kids. Dinner. Cleanup.
Shared space that didn’t demand explanation or resolution.
It would be easy to call a week like this boring. But boring is often just stability we’re not used to trusting.
For a long time, I believed that if nothing moved, something must be wrong. That calm meant avoidance. That quiet meant neglect. That if I wasn’t doing something – processing, clarifying, fixing – I was failing the moment.
This week undid that belief.
Somewhere in the middle of this limbo, I realized my why had changed.
It used to be driven by fear. Fear of losing. Fear of being alone. Fear of regret. Fear wearing the mask of urgency.
I once thought wanting clarity meant loving harder.
I can see now how much of that was fear dressed up as effort.
There’s no shame in that. It made sense at the time.
But quietly, without a decision, without a breakthrough, something shifted.
What I want now isn’t about saving something at all costs. It’s about how I choose to stand while things are undecided.
My why isn’t don’t let this end. It’s don’t abandon myself while I wait. That’s the anchor.
There’s a kind of strength I’m learning to recognize now. Not the kind that pushes, or withdraws. Not the kind that needs reassurance to stay upright.
I think of it as calm strength. It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t need momentum to feel real. It doesn’t confuse urgency with care.
Calm strength chooses rest when escalation would be easier.
It lets nights end cleanly instead of squeezing them for meaning.
It allows moments to pass without turning them into symbols.
Urgency wants answers.
Calm strength builds capacity.
This week asked for capacity.
I still want connection. Presence. Partnership. Intimacy.
But I don’t want them if they require urgency. Or persuasion. Or self-erasure.
That realization didn’t arrive as a declaration. It arrived as quiet.
This week, nothing happened and that’s when I noticed it. I wasn’t bracing. I wasn’t chasing. I wasn’t scanning for signs. I was just here.
I keep coming back to the violin.
A violin doesn’t always need the bow.
Sometimes the work is quieter than sound.
Sometimes the wood just needs to hold tension without cracking.
This feels like that.
Less playing. More holding.
And that kind of restraint takes strength most people never see.
Here’s the truth I didn’t expect to be able to say yet…
I don’t know what’s coming next. She may not know either.
And for the first time, I’m not trying to. Not because I’ve given up, but because I’ve learned that not everything needs to be chased to stay alive.
Wanting love isn’t fear. Needing certainty to feel okay is.
Because even though nothing happened, the house felt safer. The nights ended without damage. I didn’t abandon myself. I didn’t force her into clarity.
And the kids saw calm instead of tension disguised as effort.
I don’t know what happens next.
I only know that my why no longer needs an answer to exist.
Nothing happened. And somehow, that was the point.