“What is the point of all of this?”
That was the note I typed into my Notes app as my plane touched down in Nashville. I wasn’t trying to be philosophical — I just was feeling everything all at once. I had just spent five days in Maryland with my daughter, Grace, and her husband. While I was there, I gave myself permission to simply be present.
No schedule. No agenda. Not rushing ahead or catching up.
Just present.
Human.
(I shared about it on Substack Notes and it went viral → READ)
But as the wheels hit the earth again, I felt the weight of real life and the shift from being back to doing. From presence back to productivity. From lingering in the moment to checking off the next to-do item.
And in that hollow pause as the plane went from the runway to the gate, from arrival to activity, I found myself wondering, “Is all of life just one long (or short) goodbye?”
And that’s when the tears welled up in my eyes.
Goodbyes are hard.
But they’re also beautiful. They mean we showed up. They mean we loved. They mean we gave time, energy, and presence to something or someone that mattered.
Goodbyes are life in motion.
You don’t often cry over what you never cared about.
And to even get to a goodbye, you have to act.
I didn’t get to Maryland by hoping one day I’d get there. I booked a flight, rearranged my schedule, packed streamers for her birthday, and showed up.
And that’s the truth, isn’t it?
It’s sooooo ridiculously easy to talk about life and what we hope to do someday. It’s easy to dream and to wish. But, eventually, we must choose to do. To act. Even if life feels messy or inconvenient or even scary.
As a writer, a creative, I live in ideas, and the hypothetical of what could be. I can feel them, love them, nurture them, get lost in them, but I also know how easy it is to stop short of action. Fear whispers the all-familiar lines: What if it fails, Rachel? What if it’s not enough? What if no one likes it? What if you’re not enough?
Lately (or at least for the past couple of years), I’ve been diligent about facing that fear and dismantling those whispers. (Read about my firewalk🔥).
Do you know what I’m learning?
There is a sacred space between being and doing.
It’s a life rhythm of both/and. In fact, so much of my writing here has been exploring the duality of life. It’s not just hustle. Not just contemplating.
It’s alignment.
That’s the gem I’m starting to hold more gently, more firmly, in my own hands.
And maybe that’s the point of it all.
To love so deeply that goodbye brings tears.
To live so fully that presence leaves an imprint.
To act, even when afraid.
To find the sacred rhythm between being and doing.
To keep showing up for this imperfect, beautiful life.
This is it.
Not someday.
Today. This is our life.
And the tears, the ache in our chest, the bittersweet moments when we part?
It means we’re alive.
On this journey.
With those we love.
~Rachel
