I Didn’t Know I Was Drowning Until I Came Up for Air

I Didn’t Know I Was Drowning Until I Came Up for Air

There was a moment—
small, almost forgettable—
when I stood at the laundry machine, hands on wet clothes, watching the light dance across the spider web I'd been planning to remove for weeks.

The house was loud in that familiar way.
A toy clattered somewhere upstairs.
Someone was calling downstairs, asking for a snack.
The dog barked at something in the yard.

And still—
for a second—
everything went quiet inside my body.

Not peaceful.
Just… paused.

Like when you finally come up for air
and realize you’ve been holding your breath longer than you knew.

I don’t think I knew I was drowning.

Not in the way people describe it—
no dramatic breaking point,
no single moment where everything fell apart.

It felt smaller than that.
More like the slightest decline downward, almost imperceptible.

It looked like getting through the day.
It sounded like, “I’m fine.”
It felt like moving from one thing to the next without ever fully pausing or being present.

You wake up tired.
You keep going anyway.

You answer the messages.
You show up for the people who count on you.
You hold space, hold schedules, hold it all together—
your hands always just full enough
that nothing slips. Until it does.

And somewhere along the way,
you stop noticing that you haven’t taken a full breath in days.

I see this so often—
in the women I sit with,
in the corners of my own life.

Not burnout that looks like collapse,
but burnout that looks like competence.

You’re still functioning.
Still reliable.
Still the one people trust.

Which makes it harder to name.

Because how do you admit something is wrong
when everything still technically works?

Sometimes it shows up in your body first.

Your shoulders sit a little higher than they used to.
Your jaw aches in the morning.
Your breath stays shallow, like it’s afraid to let more air in.

You sit down at night—
finally—
and instead of relief,
there’s a strange restlessness.

Like your body doesn’t quite remember how to settle.

You scroll.
You snack.
You stare at nothing.

Not because you’re lazy—
but because you’re depleted in a way that doesn’t respond to effort.

And still…
you keep going.

Because you’re good at this.
At holding things together.
At being the steady one.

There’s almost a pride in it, too.

And a cost.

The hard part is this:

When you’ve been moving underwater for so long,
you forget what air is supposed to feel like.

So when a moment of stillness comes—
a real one, not the kind you schedule—
it can feel unfamiliar.

Even uncomfortable.

Like your body is saying,
Wait… what is this?

I remember once, years ago,
standing outside after a long day.

The sky was doing that soft evening thing—
pink and gold bleeding into each other,
like the day wasn’t quite ready to leave.

And I realized I had nowhere to be.

No one needed anything from me.
No task was waiting.

Just… space.

And instead of relief,
I felt a flicker of panic.

My chest tightened.
My mind started searching—
What am I forgetting? What should I be doing?

Because stillness, after long stretches of survival,
doesn’t often feel like safety right away.

Sometimes it feels like emptiness.

No one tells you that.

No one tells you that when you finally come up for air,
your lungs might not trust it yet. It might even hurt at first.

If you’ve been feeling that—
that low feeling of tired that sleep doesn’t fix,
that edge of anxiety that shows up when things get quiet,
that strange disconnection from your own life—

you’re not doing something wrong.

You might just be someone
who has been holding her breath for a very long time.

And I want to say something clearly here,
because I know how easily this can turn into another thing to fix.

You don’t have to overhaul your life.

You don’t need a perfect routine.
You don’t need more discipline.

Your nervous system isn’t asking you to perform better.

It’s asking you to come up for air—
in small, ordinary ways.

Not the kind you post about.

The kind no one sees.

Like slowing down as you walk from one meeting to the next, just a beat.

Like noticing the way your feet feel on the floor as you stand in line.

Like taking one full breath—
not because it’s on a checklist,
but because your body asked for it.

It won’t feel like much at first. Or it might feel like a whole lot.

That’s okay.

When you’ve been underwater,
even a small breath counts.

There’s a question I sometimes return to—
not as a task,
but as a place to land:

What does my body need right now,
before I ask it to give anything else?

Not what should it need.
Not what would make you more productive.

Just—
what would feel like the smallest bit of relief?

Sometimes the answer is rest.

Sometimes it’s stepping outside for a minute.
Sometimes it’s closing your eyes
and letting yourself feel tired
without trying to talk yourself out of it.

Sometimes it’s naming,
This is a lot.

You’re allowed to feel that
even if your life looks “fine” from the outside.

Especially then.

If you want a place to begin—
something gentle, something contained—

there’s a small check-in I often offer.

Not a test.
Not something to get right.

Just a way of listening more closely.

The “Are You Running on Empty?” 2-minute check-in
is designed for moments exactly like this—
when you’re not sure what you’re feeling,
just that something feels… off.

It helps you name the kind of tired you’re carrying
and offers a few places to start
that meet you where you already are.

You don’t have to fix anything.
You just have to notice.

The truth is,
most people don’t realize they are drowning
until they feel the air again.

Until something in them softens.
Until their breath deepens
without being told to.

Until they remember—
oh.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like that all the time.

If you’re just starting to notice it now,
that doesn’t mean you’ve waited too long.

It means your body finally felt safe enough
to let you see it.

And that matters.

So if today feels heavy—
or strangely quiet—
or somewhere in between—

you don’t have to rush past it.

You don’t have to turn it into something useful.

You can just stand there for a moment,
hands on laundry,
light dancing on that spider web,

and let yourself breathe
like you’ve been allowed to all along.

A quiet place to land

If you need it today,
this is your permission to soften the edges a little.

Not forever.
Not perfectly.

Just here.
Just now.

With you in this,
Julia