A few weeks ago, my youngest son graduated from high school.
It was one of those beautiful, full-family milestone weekends. Our house was packed with people we love, we hosted a big feast, and we celebrated the kind of moment that makes you pause and think, How did we get here so fast?
My best friend, who has been in my life since we were in high school, and her partner, stayed with us through the weekend. It gave us a rare stretch of much-needed quality time—the kind we used to take for granted as teenagers, when late-night conversations, laughing until our faces hurt, and having nowhere else to be felt like the most natural thing in the world.
But now we are in our 40s, not our 20s. And as it turns out, staying up late three nights in a row does not land quite the same way it used to.
After days of celebrating, hosting, spending an entire Friday in the sun on the river, and playing games until midnight, we all woke up Saturday morning tired. Not just a little tired. Deeply, collectively, not-one-of-us-is-chipper tired.
The problem was that we had a plan. We were supposed to go to San Francisco for the day, including a prepaid escape room. So we started going through the motions: Who is driving? Should we take public transit? What time do we need to leave? Can everyone rally?
And then it hit me. We could just…not go. It felt so obvious once I said it, but it also felt strangely brave. We had already said yes. Money had already been spent. The plan had already been made. But everyone was exhausted.
So I said the quiet thing out loud: “What if we just don’t go?”
The relief in the room was immediate.
Everyone wanted to give one another permission to change the plan, but no one wanted to be the first to say it. And that was the reminder I needed: it is okay to say no, even when you already said yes.
Instead of rushing around to do the thing we had planned, we gave ourselves permission to listen to what we actually needed. We stayed home. We rested. We moved slowly. We let the day be a day of nurturing ourselves rather than pushing ourselves.
And here is the part I keep thinking about: it was still deeply connected.
Maybe it was not the kind of connection we had planned for. There was no big outing, no San Francisco adventure, no escape room story to tell afterward. But there was still togetherness. There was still laughter. There was still the comfort of being with people who know you well enough that doing less can still feel like more.
Sometimes saying no creates the conditions for the connection we actually have the capacity to receive.
What might it look like for you to pause and ask, “What do I actually have capacity for right now?”
With Resilience,
Kristie and the Dovetail Team