Welcome back to Soft Days Collective, friend.
Come in, find a cozy spot to sit, wrap your hands around your favorite iced drink, and stay awhile. If today has felt heavy, I’m really glad you’re here. Maybe this is exactly where both of us are supposed to be. Sometimes life asks more of our hearts than we feel equipped to give, and before we can move forward, we simply need a quiet place to rest. So today, let’s rest here together.
Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about family. Not because I’m falling apart, but because I’ve realized that some of the greatest loves in my life were never guaranteed to me. They were chosen. And maybe that’s what makes them feel so sacred.
Don’t get me wrong—I have wonderful parents and an incredible extended family that have loved me through every season of my life. I know how lucky I am for that, and I never want to overlook it. But somewhere along the way, life quietly placed other people in my path. People who didn’t have to stay. People who didn’t have to answer the text, return the phone call, or make room for one more person in their already busy lives. Yet somehow, they did. Day after day, year after year, they kept choosing me.
I’ve always thought there was something incredibly beautiful about that.
There is something profoundly healing about being loved by people who owe you absolutely nothing.
These are the people who receive the late-night messages when my brain refuses to quiet down. The people who get the random voice memo because I had a thought that simply couldn’t wait until morning. The people who receive a ridiculous reel with no context, knowing somehow it is my way of saying, “I thought of you today.” They’re the people who have patiently listened to my tangents that somehow begin with a walk in the woods and end with childhood memories, Disney movies, leadership lessons, or whatever strange trail my brain decided to wander down that day. They never rush me. They never make me feel like I’m too much. Instead, they lean in with curiosity, laughter, and kindness, reminding me that maybe being understood isn’t nearly as complicated as I once believed.
The truth is, they know the version of Sarah that most people don’t.
They know the Sarah who finally puts the mask down.
For so much of my life, I didn’t even realize I was wearing one. I just knew there were pieces of myself that seemed easier to hide than explain. It felt safer to smile instead of saying I was overwhelmed. Safer to agree than to disappoint someone. Safer to become who everyone else needed me to be than risk discovering that the real me wasn’t enough.
Growing up, and honestly well into my twenties, I carried this quiet belief that I was simply… a little too much. Too emotional. Too sensitive. Too quiet until I was comfortable, and then suddenly too talkative. Too passionate about things other people didn’t seem to notice. Too deeply affected by the world around me. Somewhere along the way, I started believing that belonging meant editing myself until I fit neatly into other people’s expectations.
Looking back now, I ache for that younger version of myself.
I wish I could wrap her in the biggest hug and tell her that there was never anything wrong with the way she loved, the way she noticed tiny details, or the way her heart felt everything so deeply. I wish I could tell her that one day she would find people who wouldn’t just accept those parts of her—they would cherish them.
Because that is exactly what happened.
Somewhere between heartbreaks, career changes, paradigm shifts, late-night conversations, road trips, and ordinary Tuesdays, I found people who made authenticity feel safe.
People who never once asked me to become smaller.
People who never treated my heart like it was “too much.”
People who reminded me that I didn’t have to earn love by exhausting myself trying to deserve it.
That kind of love changes you.
It changes the way you see yourself.
It changes the way your nervous system responds when your phone lights up with their name.
It changes the stories you’ve spent years telling yourself about your worth.
Over the last few years, life has stretched me in ways I never expected. There have been beautiful moments that took my breath away, but there have also been seasons that left me feeling cracked wide open. Seasons where I questioned everything I thought I knew about myself. Seasons where I grieved people, dreams, and versions of my life that no longer fit. Seasons where I wondered if choosing myself made me selfish because I had spent so many years believing everyone else’s comfort mattered more than my own.
Through every one of those moments, my chosen family never tried to fix me.
They simply stayed.
Sometimes love doesn’t look like having all the right words.
Sometimes it looks like someone answering the phone.
Someone sending a “thinking of you” text at exactly the right moment.
Someone reminding you to eat dinner.
Someone sitting beside you in silence because they know words aren’t enough.
Someone believing in you long before you’re able to believe in yourself again.
I’ve learned that healing rarely happens because one extraordinary thing changes your life overnight.
More often, it happens because ordinary people keep showing up with extraordinary consistency.
And I think that’s what family really is.
Not necessarily the people who share your last name.
Not the people who feel obligated to love you.
But the people who continue choosing you, even after they’ve seen the messy parts.
The people who know your fears, your insecurities, your dreams, your weird sense of humor, and the parts of your story you’re still trying to make peace with… and somehow love you even more because of them.
I don’t have a big circle, and I don’t want one.
The older I get, the less interested I am in being known by many people and the more grateful I am to be deeply known by a few.
Because being deeply known is one of the rarest gifts this life has to offer.
To know that there are people who have seen you at your absolute worst and still answer the phone.
Who know exactly how your anxiety sounds through a text message.
Who celebrate your wins as though they were their own.
Who gently call you out when you’re slipping back into people-pleasing.
Who remind you that you’re allowed to take up space.
Who make the world feel a little softer simply because they’re in it.
That kind of love feels like coming home.
So, Marq, Kales, Tori, and Allison…
Thank you.
Thank you for choosing me on the ordinary days when there was nothing remarkable to celebrate.
Thank you for holding space for my messy moments just as tenderly as you celebrated the joyful ones.
Thank you for laughing until our stomachs hurt, for listening when my heart was breaking, for encouraging me when I couldn’t see the next step, and for reminding me—over and over again—that I never have to earn a seat at your table.
You have become more than my friends.
You have become part of my home.
And if there’s one thing I hope everyone reading this takes with them today, it’s this:
I hope you find your people.
The ones who make it safe to exhale.
The ones who don’t ask you to become quieter, easier, or smaller.
The ones who remind you that you were never too much—you were simply waiting to be loved by people who could hold the fullness of who you are.
Because when you finally find those people, something remarkable happens.
You stop searching for where you belong.
You realize you were home all along.
You just hadn’t found the right family yet.