When Life Gets Loud, Be Still

I haven’t written in a while.
Not because I didn’t want to.
But because life got loud.

Not just busy. Loud.
The kind of loud that drowns out your breath.
The kind that fills your calendar and your mind until you forget where your body ends.
The kind that doesn’t stop until something breaks—or someone does.

This fall has been a season of losing.
Of letting go.
Of learning how to breathe again.

The Season That Taught Me to Be Quiet

By trade, I work in education.
But I’m not a teacher.
I’m the kind of person who supports the system from behind the scenes—managing, building, fixing, answering. Holding it all together with spreadsheets and strategy and sheer will.

And I love it.
But it also consumes.

The truth is, I’ve been sprinting for years.

Not just in my job, but in the way I show up—for my community, for EverProud, for everyone who needed a little extra support. I’ve worn a thousand hats. Held a thousand things. Forgotten, sometimes, to hold myself.

Until this fall stopped me.

Until loss cracked me open.

My dad passed away after a long decline. A slow fading.
The kind of goodbye you rehearse a hundred times in your head, but are never ready for.

He was quiet. Gentle. Constant.
The kind of person who didn’t fill a room with words, but with presence.
He always smiled. Always listened. Always wanted to know more—not to respond, but to understand.

Even in his hardest moments, he made time to be with you.

And now, in his absence, I’m realizing how little time I’ve made to be with myself.

What the Silence Taught Me

Grief has a way of clearing out the noise.

Suddenly, all the things you thought were urgent… aren’t.
All the reasons you gave for staying late, saying yes, skipping lunch, pushing through—they vanish.

And in their place is something quieter.
Something softer.
A space that says: You don’t have to do this anymore. Not like this.

It’s a hard thing to admit when you’ve built an identity around being the one who gets things done.
But I’m learning: presence is more powerful than productivity.
Being is braver than performing.
Stillness is not the absence of motion—it’s the return of meaning.

There’s No Award for Burning Out

Somewhere along the way, we were taught that exhaustion is a virtue.
That self-sacrifice is the cost of care.
That we have to earn our worth through overextension.

But let me say this clearly:

There is no award for burning out.
No gold star for missing dinner.
No promotion for answering emails in the dark.

In education especially, you don’t do it for praise.
You rarely hear “thank you.”
Most days, you're told what you're not doing fast enough.
And yet—you show up. Every single time.

Because sometimes, a kid looks at you and you see it.
The spark.
The glint.
That flicker of belief in themselves that wasn’t there before.

And in that moment, maybe you played a part.
Maybe you helped change something.
Maybe that change will ripple out into the world.

That is your reward.
Not a raise.
Not applause.
But the quiet, sacred knowing that you helped a child believe they mattered.

I’m Still Learning

I’m still learning to slow down.
To unclench. To breathe. To rest without guilt.

This fall taught me that there is no magic moment where it suddenly becomes easy.
Slowing down is uncomfortable.
Stopping feels like failure when you’ve tied your value to motion.

But it’s not.

It’s human.
It’s necessary.
It’s the only way back to yourself.

So I’m trying.

I’m learning to take up space without filling it.
To sit in silence without needing to fix something.
To stop explaining what I do and why I do it to everyone around me.

Because it’s enough that I care.
It’s enough that I’m here.
It’s enough that I’m still learning how to live a life that isn’t always about giving everything away.

A Final Thought

I think about my dad’s smile.
The way he looked you in the eye like you were the only thing that mattered.
The way he paused—not to rest, but to be.

I want to live more like that.

So I’m returning—slowly, imperfectly, but with intention.
To myself.
To presence.
To stillness.
To breath.

And maybe, to writing again.

Thanks for waiting.
Thanks for showing up, even when I couldn’t.

Stay grounded.
Stay soft.
Stay human.

With care,
Patrick