I have decided to be water

It's all I can do right now

I have decided to be water. It is all I can do right now.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to be something else—solid, certain, immovable. A rock, perhaps. The one who knows what to do, who holds everything together, who absorbs the chaos and makes sense of it for everyone else. I thought that’s what strength looked like: a fixed point in a turning world. But now, I’m unraveling in ways I didn’t expect, and all my old forms no longer hold. So I have decided to be water.

Water doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. It doesn’t grip. It responds. It adapts. That’s the part I’m trying to learn. I used to think I had to fight my way through the hard things—white-knuckle them, push past, stay busy, be brave. But lately, nothing works like it used to. My body is tired. My mind is full. My heart keeps leaking at the edges. So instead of fighting, I am letting myself soften. I am learning how to flow.

This doesn’t mean I’ve given up. It means I’m finding a different way. I think of the river I grew up beside, the one that cut through red clay and curled around boulders like it was dancing. No matter what blocked its path, it didn’t stop. It didn’t rage. It just kept moving. I want that for myself—a quiet persistence, a gentleness that still gets me somewhere. Not all at once. Not with grandeur. Just drop by drop.

I think of how water carries what it cannot change. Of how it makes space for both light and shadow. Of how it can be still and deep, or wild and rushing, depending on what the moment asks. Maybe I’m learning that survival doesn’t always look like courage. Sometimes it looks like tears. Like sleep. Like saying no. Like staying quiet. Sometimes it looks like letting go of the person you thought you had to be.

There are days when I feel like a puddle, shallow and easily stepped over. And then there are days when I feel like a storm, overwhelming and too much. But water never questions its shape. It takes up the space it needs and trusts that it belongs there. I want to trust that, too.

I’m not broken, but something in me is melting. The old armor, the stories I’ve told myself about what I have to be. Water is what’s left when the mask dissolves. It’s the truest part of me—soft, strong, steady.

So I will be water. I will move when I can, rest when I must, and trust that even in stillness, something is shifting. I will not apologize for needing time. I will not berate myself for not having answers. I will let the tide pull me toward healing, toward home, even if I don’t yet know what that looks like.

I have decided to be water. It is all I can do right now. And for once, that feels like enough.

Love,

Patti