Choosing Presence & Learning to Stay

I think we’ve been lied to about what thriving is supposed to look like. Somewhere along the way, thriving became synonymous with momentum, clarity, joy, productivity—good weeks where everything clicks and nothing hurts too badly. By that definition, this has not been a thriving week for me. But I’m starting to realize that thriving isn’t a mood or an outcome—it’s a posture. It’s not about having it together or feeling inspired. It’s about choosing presence when things are heavy, uncomfortable, and unresolved. I used to think staying meant strength—pushing through, holding it together, not falling apart. Lately, staying doesn’t feel noble at all; it feels expensive. It costs me energy, patience, and sometimes joy. It costs me comfort in my own body when pain won’t let up. It costs me the illusion that I can handle everything if I just try harder. And yet, here I am—still showing up, still doing the work, still refusing to disappear from my life, even when everything in me wants relief more than resolution.

What I’m learning—slowly, and sometimes unwillingly—is that my body tells the truth long before my mind is ready to hear it. When pain is constant, it changes everything. It shortens my patience. It thins my emotional margin. It makes small frustrations feel enormous and reasonable requests feel impossible. When my back hurts the way it has this week, I’m not just uncomfortable—I’m depleted. And depletion doesn’t leave much room for grace, curiosity, or perspective.

Chronic pain has a way of turning life into a series of calculations: How long can I stand? How far can I walk? How much energy do I have left? By the time the day is over, there’s often nothing left in the tank. That’s when anger shows up faster. Tears come more easily. Everything feels louder, heavier, and more urgent. I don’t feel resilient in those moments—I feel exposed. Choosing presence when my body is screaming doesn’t feel spiritual or heroic; it feels exhausting.

And yet, this is where learning to stay begins for me right now—not with insight or clarity, but with awareness. Noticing that my reactions are often rooted in pain, not failure. That my irritability isn’t a moral flaw, but a signal that my body has reached its limit. I’m learning to pay attention to that signal instead of shaming myself for it. Staying, in this season, looks like listening to my body without letting it convince me that everything is broken. It looks like acknowledging how hard this is without using that hardness as permission to disappear.

This week has also made painfully clear how hard it is to stay present when the systems you’re in don’t seem to have room for you as a whole person. There are moments when I feel reduced to a checkbox, a role, a compliance requirement—expected to fit neatly into structures that don’t account for context, experience, or capacity. In those moments, staying doesn’t feel collaborative; it feels constricting.

I’m noticing how often I’m asked to prove my commitment by bending, stretching, or absorbing more—more meetings, more expectations, more responsibility—without the corresponding support or flexibility that would make those demands sustainable. It’s disorienting to be treated like a beginner when you’re not, or to be reminded of rules without any acknowledgment of the work already being done beyond them. When systems prioritize procedure over people, choosing presence requires a kind of emotional contortion that takes a toll.

What makes this especially difficult is that I care deeply about the work itself. I want to show up well. I want to do right by the students, the artists, the people depending on me. But there’s a quiet exhaustion that comes from carrying responsibility without authority, from being expected to hold things together while feeling unseen or unsupported. In those moments, the urge to check out—to go numb, to shut down, to emotionally step away—gets louder.

Before going any further, I want to be clear about what I mean when I talk about staying. I don’t mean survival in the most literal sense, or white-knuckling my way through life at any cost. I don’t mean forcing myself to endure something harmful or pretending I’m okay when I’m not. What I mean by staying is choosing presence over numbness. It’s staying in my body, staying honest with myself, staying engaged with my life instead of emotionally checking out or disappearing into anger, distraction, or withdrawal.

And still, if I’m honest, there’s a part of me right now that wants out. Not just out of a bad week, but out of the weight of carrying so much of this alone. The truth I don’t love admitting is that the things that once brought me the most joy—teaching theatre, directing, creating—feel heavy right now. They don’t feel life-giving in the way they once did. Instead of excitement, I feel pressure. Instead of inspiration, I feel responsibility. And instead of joy, I often feel resentment. That breaks my heart, because this work has shaped me since I was thirteen years old. It has given my life meaning, direction, and purpose. To feel this disconnected from it now hurts more than I want to admit.

What I’m trying to hold gently is the difference between burnout and calling. Burnout tells convincing lies. It whispers that the thing you love is the problem, that the only solution is to walk away completely, that relief will come if you just quit or disappear. But I’m learning not to make lifelong declarations in the middle of deep exhaustion. I don’t think this is about abandoning what I love—I think it’s about acknowledging that I need rest, support, and space to heal. Wanting a break is not the same as giving up. Needing distance is not the same as failure.

So for now, choosing presence doesn’t mean doubling down or pretending everything is fine. It means finishing what’s in front of me with as much integrity as I can muster, while also giving myself permission to step back afterward. It means admitting that I can’t keep running at this pace indefinitely—and that listening to that truth is not weakness. Staying, in this moment, looks like honoring my limits without rewriting my entire story in the language of despair.

What I’m realizing is that learning to stay—at least right now—is less about endurance and more about trust. Not trust that everything will work out neatly or quickly, but trust that I don’t have to disappear from myself while I wait. I don’t have clarity. I don’t feel particularly strong or inspired. Some days, choosing presence just means getting out of bed, doing the next right thing, and admitting how hard that feels. But I’m choosing to believe that God meets me here—not after I’ve figured it out, not once I feel better, not when the anger or pain finally subsides. Right here, in the middle of it.

I’m learning that thriving isn’t about having good weeks or feeling energized or loving every part of my life. Thriving is refusing to abandon myself when things are heavy. It’s noticing what hurts, naming what’s unsustainable, and choosing presence anyway. It’s choosing honesty over numbness, presence over disappearance, faith over certainty. Some weeks, thriving looks like momentum. Other weeks—like this one—it looks like staying put, breathing through the discomfort, and trusting that rest and renewal will come in time.

I don’t know what changes next. I don’t know what this season will give way to. But I do know this: I’m still here. I’m still paying attention. I’m still choosing not to let exhaustion write the final chapter of my story. And for now, that’s enough. If thriving is learning how to choose presence—especially when it’s hard—then this week, messy and painful as it’s been, still counts.