The Month I Learned to Be Carried

The month of June 2026 did not ask me to become someone new.

It asked me to trust the woman I had already spent two years becoming.

The month opened quietly, with a simple intention: integrate further. Looking back now, I realize that was exactly what June was designed to do. It wasn’t a month of invention or reinvention. It was a month of embodiment.

The lessons arrived one after another, gently at first.

I remembered that you can’t paddle out of the eddy by force. I learned that the steps build the mountain. I celebrated small victories, checked off important work, swam, painted, walked with Sophie, gathered with friends, and found moments of joy tucked inside ordinary days. Life continued asking me to practice everything I had been learning.

Then, without warning, the landscape changed.

Within twenty-four hours, I experienced two moments that could not have been more different. One belonged to the closing chapter of my past; the other opened one of the hardest chapters of my future.

I invited Zach over because I didn’t want to carry loneliness alone for one evening. We talked, shared comfort, and by morning I quietly sent him home—not with anger, hope, or regret, but with clarity. The chapter had already ended long before that night. My journal would later summarize the entire experience in eight unexpected words:

“Use him and send him home.”

Hours later, I walked into the office and learned that Patty’s cancer was no longer treatable.

The ground shifted beneath all of us.

For the first time, grief wasn’t waiting somewhere in the future. It had arrived. 

What followed wasn’t dramatic.

It was fog.

It was difficult conversations.

It was trying to think through static.

It was realizing that grief doesn’t politely wait until the work is finished.

But somewhere inside that fog, another lesson quietly emerged.

I discovered that structure isn’t the opposite of compassion.

Sometimes structure is compassion.

When my mind couldn’t carry everything, routines carried me.

When my emotions overflowed, boundaries held the edges.

When nothing felt normal, the foundations I had spent months building quietly did their job.

I didn’t have to become stronger.

I discovered I already was.

By the end of the month, another realization settled into my bones.

The horizon had shifted.

Not simply because life had changed, but because I had.

I no longer measure my life by whether I can escape pain.

I measure it by how faithfully I can steward what has been placed into my hands.

Leadership.

Grief.

Friendship.

Business.

Wonder.

Love.

Responsibility.

They no longer compete with one another.

They coexist.

Perhaps the greatest gift June offered was the understanding that I no longer need to choose between strength and softness.

I can carry multiple truths in one trembling hand.

I can be devastated and deeply capable.

I can grieve someone I haven’t yet lost while building the future she believed I could lead.

I can shake.

And still remain.

As June came to its close, one sentence rose quietly above all the others:

The grief is a lot, but so am I.

Not because grief became smaller.

But because my capacity became larger.

Symbols of the Month

⛰️ The Mountain — Built one deliberate step at a time, never all at once.

🌀 The Eddy — A reminder that force is not the way through every current.

🌳 The Author Tree — Storms do not stop the story; they become part of the rings. Even with trembling hands, the story continues to be written.

🌅 The Horizon — No longer something I chase, but something that widens as I continue walking.

Seal of June

June taught me that strength is not the absence of trembling.

Strength is discovering that my hands can shake while still carrying what matters.

The mountain continues to rise beneath my feet.

The horizon continues to widen before my eyes.

And the story…

…is still being written on the tree. 💜