Sunday Introspection

After the Feast

By the time the last dish is washed and the leftovers tucked into the fridge, there’s a silence that settles over the house — the kind that only comes after you’ve spent days cooking, hosting, tending, making sure everyone has enough. Enough food. Enough warmth. Enough of you.

And now you’re tired. Not the small kind of tired that a nap fixes, but the deep kind that lives in your bones after years of being the one who holds the center.

It’s funny how holidays ask so much of us, especially the ones who grew up learning that care is a language we don’t get to stop speaking. Feeding people becomes a ritual, a duty, a love offering, a survival skill — sometimes all at once. And when the table finally empties, the quiet afterward can feel like both relief and ache.

Today, I’m thinking about how many of us carry that dual fatigue: the physical exhaustion of cooking and hosting, and the emotional exhaustion of always being “the strong one.” The one who makes it all happen. The one who holds the stories, the griefs, the memories we didn’t ask for — and still manages to bring sweetness to the table.

But rest is a kind of resistance too.
A soft, necessary one.

So on this Sunday, I’m choosing ease.
Nothing profound. Nothing polished.
Just the truth that after all that labor — all that love — I’m allowed to sit down.

Maybe you need that reminder too.

Here’s to slow breaths, leftovers for dinner, and the kind of quiet that lets our bodies unclench.

We did enough this week.
Now we get to rest.💎