A few days ago, I spent time with some people I care about deeply.
They’re good people. They love me. They’ve been in my corner for a very long time.
But after our time together, I drove home carrying something I couldn’t quite name.
It felt like I didn’t measure up.
Not because anyone said those words.
Just because there had been so much conversation about success. Financial standing. Personal responsibility. People who were “doing really well for themselves.”
I found myself wondering why I felt so heavy.
And then I started paying attention.
This has been one of the fullest weeks I’ve had in a long time.
Not full of accomplishments.
Full of people.
A cousin called from France to check in.
A friend I hadn’t spoken to in years wrote, “I’ve been thinking about you too.”
A woman I met at a wedding one day read one of my blog posts the next and texted me that she read it with tears in her eyes.
A psychology professor from seventeen years ago shared that she follows my writing and encouraged me to keep going.
Friends shared stories about volunteering, horses, children, ordinary joys, and ordinary struggles.
One conversation after another.
Not because people needed answers.
Because they wanted connection.
As I scrolled through my Messages app, I noticed something.
My phone wasn’t full of transactions.
It was full of relationships.
Then I had my yearly women’s health appointment.
If I’m honest, I walked into that office dreading one thing.
The scale.
Since my first psychiatric hospitalization in October 2024, medication has added about thirty pounds to my body.
I’ve made peace with a lot over the past few years.
That number is still tender.
So I decided to rip off the Band-Aid first.
I stepped on the scale at home before heading to my appointment.
The number was a little higher than I’d hoped.
I shared with the tech taking my blood pressure that I was disappointed about my weight.
She spared me from stepping on their scale and recorded the number I gave her instead.
Then my nurse practitioner came in.
We talked through the past few years.
The medications.
The hospitalizations.
The frustration of feeling like a guinea pig while trying to understand what was really happening inside my brain and body.
The sobriety.
The healing.
The family patterns.
The slow work of recovering.
At one point I laughed and told her, “I never thought two psychiatric hospitals would be on my bingo card.”
Somewhere along the way, our conversation shifted.
I noticed the pink silicone ring she was wearing that matched her shirt.
We laughed about that.
I asked about her family.
She asked about my sobriety.
We talked about recovery and trauma.
About ADHD.
About the ripple effect that healing one person can have on an entire family.
Then she looked at me quietly and said something I’ll never forget.
“You seem like you’re doing really well.”
“You seem like you’re in a much better place than you were the last time I saw you.”
I smiled.
Because I’d been focused on thirty pounds.
She was looking at my whole life.
I had been measuring my health with a scale.
She was measuring it with peace.
That was another marker of success.
One that couldn’t be measured in pounds.
A few days later, my cousin Samuel called from France.
We were talking about his son Nicolas, who had just flown in to visit extended family.
At one point Samuel said something beautifully simple.
“You have to water relationships.”
I admitted something that had quietly been on my mind for a long time.
“I think I withdrew over the past few years because I didn’t feel like I had much to offer.”
Then I told him how much joy it had brought me to have my home filled with family.
Laughter.
Stories.
Shared history.
He listened.
Then he told me I was welcome to visit their family when they’re at their vacation home outside Montreal.
Then he stopped himself.
“No,” he corrected.
“Not welcome.
Invited.“
And before we hung up, he offered to pay for my plane ticket.
I was deeply touched.
Not because of the plane ticket.
Because I felt wanted.
This week also brought one of the sweetest surprises of all.
The continued healing of my relationship with my mom.
Not simply repaired.
Healed.
We laughed over old family memories.
We made up imaginary job titles based on the fruits of the Spirit.
She told me she’d always hoped people would remember her as “the woman who always smiled.”
I told her she wasn’t crazy.
She really is joyful.
For perhaps the first time in my life, our conversation felt completely free.
No walking on eggshells.
No trying to earn each other’s approval.
Just two women genuinely enjoying one another.
That feels like wealth.
Yesterday, after my therapy session, I decided to stop by and visit Ms. Jean.
I wasn’t working.
I simply missed her.
Her other caregiver welcomed me in, and we spent the sweetest little while together.
Then this morning, when I arrived, Ms. Jean already had her bed made and was gathering her purse, ready for the day.
Instead of jumping into our usual routine, I asked if she’d like to sit together and eat breakfast first.
So we did.
We talked.
We laughed.
We lingered.
We held hands.
Nothing extraordinary happened.
And somehow…
everything did.
As I held her hand, I realized something.
I spend a lot of my life trying to fill other people’s love tanks.
But somehow, while I thought I was loving her…
she was loving me right back.
I used to think wealth looked like money.
Or success.
Or recognition.
Now I’m not so sure.
Maybe wealth is having a cousin halfway around the world who says, “Not welcome. Invited.”
Maybe it’s a mother whose relationship with her daughter has become something neither of them imagined possible.
Maybe it’s a professor who still believes in you seventeen years after you sat in her classroom.
Maybe it’s friends who think to text because something reminded them of you.
Maybe it’s an elderly woman who reaches for your hand over breakfast and quietly reminds you what really matters.
I still have dreams.
Books I want to write.
Places I hope to see.
Work that I believe God has placed before me.
I still want to lose the weight.
I still want to grow my income.
Those things matter.
But this week reminded me that if I achieved every one of those goals while missing this…
I wouldn’t actually be rich.
Real wealth isn’t measured only by what we accumulate.
It’s measured by the people who fill our lives with love…
and by our willingness to receive it.
For years, I quietly believed I didn’t have much to offer.
This week, dozens of ordinary conversations gently argued otherwise.
Maybe I’ve been using the wrong balance sheet all along.
Because I am wealthier today than I have ever been.
Not because of what I own.
Not because of what I earn.
But because of the life I’ve been quietly building…
one relationship at a time.
P.S. I wrote a song a while back called Quiet Things.
At the time, I thought it was about the unseen work of healing.
Now I think it’s also about the unseen wealth that slowly accumulates through ordinary acts of love.
Maybe the richest parts of our lives are the quiet things after all.
🎵 Quiet Things