Permission to be Human

Today in church, my family lined the row beside me: my youngest daughter, my oldest brother and his girlfriend, his two youngest daughters, and a family friend. The church felt full in those moments, and so did I.

Our pastor talked about the balance between faithful work and spiritual rest, and how easy it is to slip away from that balance. The tendency to perform as a workaholic. The easy slide into laziness. The way imbalance impacts self acceptance when we think we're not keeping up, and the way that same imbalance stunts our personal growth when we stop trying for too long.

It's funny sometimes, how what I hear in church is so aligned to what I'm experiencing privately. Struggling to keep self compassion from becoming self absolution. Embracing imperfection without letting go of effort. Giving myself permission to rest without hearing hurtful echoes of my childhood. 

Letting go of unrealistic expectations, learning how to be more authentic, allowing myself to celebrate growth after hardship without fear of pride. Accepting the complexity of being human.

When I got home, it was seventy-six degrees in my house because the a/c is on the fritz—and the trouble with seventy-six degrees is, I have Chiari Malformation, post-covid asthma, and moderate heat intolerance.

So...I took a cold shower, turned my bedroom fan on blast, and spent most of the afternoon feeling guilty for being affected by something as simple as the weather. Because here's the thing. My to-do list doesn't care if the house feels like an oven. My giveaway blanket still needs crocheting. My office desk still needs building. The paperback for STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM still needs formatting. This blog post still needs writing.

The show must go on.

And maybe that's part of the problem—or maybe it's the solution I didn't know I was looking at.

My oldest daughter told me once that I have "main character energy," and I was insulted.

I'm a single mom, and I raised my kids mostly alone. I went to the appointments, waited during the surgeries. I learned the names of dozens of doctors. I kept track of favorite foods, dietary limitations, medications. I hosted friends, drove endless miles. And I bought eleventy-thousand glue sticks every August for as long as I can remember.

I did those things while building a career from the ground up—again, mostly alone. I wrote every chapter, coordinated every blog post, designed every piece of social media content. I did it while my books briefly made bestseller lists, and I did it when weeks passed without so much as a single sale. I noticed when comments flew in like hurricane winds, and I wrote anyway when every word was met with silence.

And I did those things while juggling relationships that mean the world to me. The time with God that keeps me healing from the past and looking toward the future. The bond I share with my cousin, without whom I could not be what I am. The friends who taught me emotional resilience and vulnerability, healing and personal growth. The safe people I laugh with, who give me permission to be human and keep loving me anyway. The ones who see the intensity of a deep-thinking introvert...and never turn away.

For forty-two years, I have been daughter, sister, friend, aunt, and mother. I have been wife and ex-wife. Student and teacher. The counselled and the counselor, the driver and the driven. In turns, I have played the parts of chauffer, chef, event coordinator, financial advisor, interior designer, maid, nurse, party planner, and therapist. I have acted as coach, handyman, nutritionist, and tutor.

I've made critical decisions that impacted everyone around me—and as the mother of more than one child, I've more than earned my unofficial badge as Peace Talk Facilitator.

But I've never once felt like the main character in anything. Not because my life is small, but because I’ve always understood it as something I’m moving through, rather than something centered on me. And I'm just trying to stay faithful to the human experience I'm caught in, to be mindful of what's in my hands. To see beyond the surface. To stay present, even when I'm stewarding responsibilities that don’t pause just because I’m tired or unsure.

Not because I am the center of the story…but because I choose to be fully present in it.

I think that's what my daughter and I both missed about whatever "main character energy" actually means. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with a spotlight on a star at center stage. Maybe it doesn't need to be cinematic at all—even if my life does look a little like a sitcom sometimes.

Maybe it's something more simple.

Like light, shifting slowly on the facets of a gem under pressure.

*****

Halfway through the year of no, what I'm learning is that truly knowing yourself, understanding yourself, and accepting yourself are all deeply tied to being okay with being more than one thing.

Some days you're the comedian, some days you're the joke. All too often, you're both at once without knowing how to separate the two. The trick is to embrace all the parts of yourself boldly, with no apology—and trusting the process as time shapes you, facet by facet, into who you're meant to be. Because becoming who you are means you can no longer go back to who you were, and that truth always brings both grief and freedom together.

We've all seen growth through challenges. We've found, or are at least looking for, purpose and healing. We've learned how to push through emotional exhaustion. And regardless of personal identity, I think we all know what it feels like to wonder why people hide parts of themselves in the first place.

And maybe that's part of authenticity, too. Learning to accept yourself as you are, where you are, instead of pretending to be someone you're not. Accepting your limitations, giving yourself grace for mistakes. Overcoming perfectionism that always seems to make just-fine feel like not-enough. Maybe it even means seeing people clearly for the first time, without painting them into who you wish they were.

Maybe it means offering more empathy and understanding, not only to others but also to yourself.

But what if at the core, it's more simple than that? What if you've just been living under the pressure of "main character energy" for too long—and you've started thinking you need someone else's permission to be human?

If that's you today, print this out or take a screenshot or something. Call it a permission slip if you need to. Either way, I hope it reminds you to make room for rest, to make peace with all the facets of who you are, and to...