Survival Mode With Good Posture

Whew! 2026 is starting off as 2025 on steroids!

I have a reputation. Ask anyone who knows me (at work, at home, in my community), and they'll tell you I handle things. I figure things out, and I deliver. I've built an entire identity around being the person who doesn't fall apart. For a long time, I’ve viewed that as something to be proud of, and while it is, it isn't.

Most people don’t know who I am when nobody's watching. I don’t mean the English teacher, editor, author, publisher, or whatever other hat I wear. I don’t mean the mom holding it together in the school car line, the doctor’s office, or the dance recital. When the door closes, the notifications stop, and the room finally goes quiet, that's when the woman the world doesn't always see gets to come out and exhale … or not. Lately, that exhale sounds a lot less like relief and a lot more like "I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this at this pace."

The thing about being unshakeable is that nobody is. It doesn’t matter if people are checking on you or not. Portraying yourself as unshakeable forces you to show, over and over again, that you’re fine, unbreakable, and unshakeable, training everyone around you to believe that you don't need what you actually need. Eventually, you start to believe it yourself.

I'm not okay sometimes. As a matter of fact, these days, I’m not okay a lot! I carry things that are heavy, complicated, and not fit for small talk. I’m learning that that's not strength; it’s just “survival mode” with good posture.

I am a mother, which is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job. Add to that the reality of parenting in this particular moment in history (and if you have children, you already know what I mean). Our kids are navigating a world that is moving faster and hitting harder. The anxiety and pressure are real. The silence that sometimes replaces the conversations you thought you'd have is real … and so are the conversations that show up out of nowhere at 3 am, when you least expect them, reminding you to stay ready.

I'm raising children who are watching everything I do (every choice, every reaction, every time I push through, and every time I break). Of course, my own children are fighting battles I cannot always see or fix, no matter how badly I want to. That's the part nobody prepares you for as a parent: the helplessness of loving someone deeply and still not being able to make it better. As a mother, as a fixer, as the woman who “handles things”, let me tell you: That helplessness is its own kind of weight!

I carry that weight … quietly … mostly. I smile through situations that deserve tears. I problem-solve my way through pain instead of actually feeling it. I worry about my children all day, every day. I hold space for other people's children every single day — fifteen to thirty teenagers, five different class periods a day, sitting in front of me who need consistency, stability, and someone who believes in them — while simultaneously praying my own children feel those same things from someone like me when I’m not around and from me when I get home.

These aren’t complaints. I believe I’m doing what I’m called to do as a mother, an educator, and a mentor, but it’s all still a lot. You know?

The bravest thing I can do isn’t launching a business, standing in front of a room full of teenagers, nor hitting a deadline; it’s admitting: "I'm not doing well, and I need support." Those eight words are terrifying. If not terrifying, they’re embarrassing. Maybe, they’re both. I don’t want anyone to know that or when I’m falling apart. Regardless, it’s the most honest thing I've said aloud about myself in a long time. (I don’t even know all of y’all like that! LOL!)

(In my Usher voice) “These are my confessions” and lessons:

• Saying “I'm not okay” is not weakness; it is what it is: the truth.

• I’m not obligated to perform strength for people who love me (family, friends, students, etc.)

• I need to be open to receiving the same support I so freely give to others — maybe even demand it.

• Asking for help does not disqualify me from being the strong one (the boss that I am - LOL!). It makes me the wise one.

• My children need to see me be human (not broken, just human). There is a difference, and it matters more than I realized.

Many people in my life don't know what to do when I’m struggling because they've never seen it or rarely see it, and that's fine. However, I can give them a chance to show up for me. As for my kids, I can let them see that even Mom (the one who handles everything) sometimes needs to step away, decompress, and just be herself for a little while. That's not me being weak; that's the lesson.

Once I fully accept that lesson, more things will shift in my favor. I have to stop apologizing for things I had no business apologizing for in the first place, and right alongside that, I have to stop reliving decisions I can no longer change.

I have to stop apologizing for my boundaries and for saying “no” to things that drain me without filling me back up. I have to stop apologizing for protecting my peace, which is the most valuable thing I own. If I’m depleted, I can’t pour into my children, my students, or my clients, no matter how badly I want to do it. Boundaries are not walls. They will be the reasons we’re still standing.

I have to stop apologizing for my choices: to build a business while taking care of a family, to pursue my own dreams out loud, where my children can see me, and to bet on myself even when it is inconvenient, uncertain, or misunderstood. I have to stop reliving the decisions I can't take back, the ones I've turned over in my mind a thousand times at 3 am, rewriting endings that will never change. 

I have to remind myself daily that revisiting a closed door doesn't open it. It just keeps me stuck, going nowhere, and I spend too much time and energy in that space. (I don’t want to be there.)

It’s okay to want or need the quiet and to step away from the noise (the group chats, the emails, the social media, the obligations, and the energy that takes more than it gives). There is a version of me that only exists in stillness (and Sis is active, productive, and peaceful AF)!

There's a quiet freedom that comes with owning your decisions … all of them, even the messy ones, even the ones you'd do differently. I'm not all the way there yet either, but I know it's not selfish, and it's not cockiness to own every decision you've made — good, bad, or somewhere in between. It's just necessary. The past is a place to learn from, not live in, and the future is where I need to put my energy now.

I can handle things. I just need to handle myself first, look forward (not backward), and not apologize for that either.