Just before Christmas, I found myself on the floor of my office, staring at the ceiling. This cycle of work, exhaustion, work, exhaustion has ruled my life for almost a decade. I felt numb. Exhausted to the point of nihilism. I couldn’t believe I was here again.
I was sick of it. And I decided unceremoniously that when I returned to work, I would do so with the understanding that everything I had been trying to hold on to, I was willing to let go. That includes wit and delight. The next one. The brand takes care of it. All of this. He appeared when he had something to say. I would share things for the pleasure of it. He was done with doing good. I was using up the last bit of creativity I had left.
Then I stopped. I got off the treadmill. I took the break I should have taken years ago.
And then I sat down to write about it.
I’m afraid of being someone who doesn’t care enough. That lets good things starve to the point that they can no longer function. Who withholds something necessary. My attachment feels responsible. It feels necessary, like it’s the structure that keeps my life from collapsing.
I tried to write about detachment. About radical compassion. About what he had learned in silence. I wrote a draft. It felt good. Instructive. And then I heard a voice in my head saying: Shit. So I closed it.
I sat with that draft for months. When I finally opened it again, I thought: Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe I was being too hard on myself. But he knew why he had closed it.
I’m afraid of being someone who doesn’t care enough. That lets good things starve to the point that they can no longer function. Who withholds something necessary. My attachment feels responsible. It feels necessary, like it’s the structure that keeps my life from collapsing.
If I stop worrying so much, if I stop managing every outcome, what happens then?
And then I saw how it happened.
My husband and I were fighting. I could see exactly what I needed to do. I had the idea. The advice. Which would fix it. And I didn’t say anything. I just waited. I saw him figure it out himself. And when he did, when he found his own path, I felt closer to him than I had in months. As if he had played a very important role in the repair. Without saying hardly anything. That shouldn’t work. but did.
That night we turned a corner. And once I saw it, I couldn’t stop watching it.
When I didn’t fight with him over the kitchen, he knew what had to be done. When I waited for my daughter to finish brushing her hair instead of lecturing her, she didn’t fight me. All of these ways I controlled made life feel harder, like it was resisting me.
All of these ways I controlled made life feel harder, like it was resisting me.
When I did less, when I cared less about how things were done, things just worked. It seems wrong to admit it. He feels lazy. As if I had given up.
Because if life got easier when I cared less, what the fuck have I been doing?
I thought my attachment was love. I thought worrying meant making sure things didn’t fall apart. But falling apart is part of the natural cycle of things. Maybe my worry was actually fear. Afraid that if I didn’t keep it all together, everything would collapse. Fear that my value lived in my vigilance. That if I stopped directing, I would stop mattering.
And the pain of that realization is its own kind of pain. Because it means that all that suffering was optional. Self-imposed. A story I told myself what it means to be good and helpful and a woman.
So this is what I’m sitting with now: What if my attention is sometimes about control? What have I been making harder than necessary? What am I afraid to see?
I’m writing this for the woman who reads on her phone at 11 at night, exhausted from managing everyone’s emotions all day and wondering why she feels so empty. For the person who just criticized their child again and hates themselves for it. For the creator who shows his values online while his real life falls apart.
I thought my attachment was love. I thought worrying meant making sure things didn’t fall apart. But falling apart is part of the natural cycle of things. Maybe my worry was actually fear. Afraid that if I didn’t keep it all together, everything would collapse. Fear that my value lived in my vigilance. That if I stopped directing, I would stop mattering.
Here’s what I understand to be true: when I cared less about how things were done, when I just hoped… things just worked out. And it seems wrong for me to admit it. But it’s real.
And maybe that’s really what freedom is. Not needing the world to change to feel good. Not needing to control everything to matter. Just… let it be. Letting them be. Let yourself be. Just for a moment.
Kate is the founder of Wit & Delight. He is currently learning to play tennis and is always testing the limits of his creative muscle. Follow her on Instagram at @witanddelight_.
