Notes From a Man Learning How to Stay

 I was taught how to leave.

Leave the house early.
Leave emotion at the door.
Leave nothing unfinished.
Leave no weakness behind.

Leaving was praised. Staying was never explained.

For a long time, staying felt like failure. If I slowed down, something must be wrong. If I rested, I must have earned it—or lost my edge. If I stayed too long in one place, one season, one feeling, I started to itch. Like I was wasting time. Like the clock was watching me.

I mistook motion for progress.

I didn’t know how to stay with discomfort.
I didn’t know how to stay with grief.
I didn’t know how to stay when the noise stopped and there was nothing left to distract me from myself.

So I kept moving.

New goals.
New plans.
New responsibilities.

Always something ahead of me. Never anything beneath me.

But life has a way of cornering you.

It slows you down whether you’re ready or not. It puts weight in your hands and asks if you’re strong enough to hold it without dropping everything else. It gives you people who don’t need you to be impressive—just present.

That’s when I realized: I didn’t know how to stay.

Staying is harder than leaving.

Leaving is clean. Staying is messy. Leaving gives you a story to tell. Staying gives you work to do. Leaving lets you control the ending. Staying forces you to live through the middle.

The middle is where things don’t resolve neatly. Where prayers don’t sound poetic. Where faith isn’t loud, it’s stubborn. Where love doesn’t feel like fire—it feels like showing up again when yesterday already took something out of you.

I used to think strength meant pushing through.

Now I think strength might be staying when there’s no applause for it.

Staying when the house is quiet and your thoughts get loud.
Staying when the past asks questions you don’t have answers for.
Staying when the old version of you whispers that you’re losing your edge.

There are days I still want to run. Not physically—internally. To disappear into work. Into plans. Into fixing something that doesn’t require me to feel.

But I’m learning.

I’m learning to stay in conversations that make me uncomfortable.
I’m learning to stay present instead of solving.
I’m learning to stay with God even when the silence feels personal.

Faith used to feel like something I did. Now it feels like something I sit in.

No rush.
No script.
No guarantee that clarity will come quickly.

Just trust that staying matters.

I’m learning that staying doesn’t mean settling. It means rooting. It means letting something grow where you are instead of chasing proof that you’re still useful. It means allowing yourself to be shaped instead of sharpened all the time.

Sharpening cuts away. Shaping forms.

My sons don’t need me to be sharp all the time. They need me here. They need consistency more than intensity. They need a man who doesn’t leave emotionally just because the day was heavy.

I’m learning how to stay for them.

I’m learning how to stay for my wife—not just in proximity, but in presence. To listen without preparing a response. To sit without needing to fix. To carry weight together instead of shouldering it alone.

And I’m learning how to stay with myself.

That might be the hardest part.

Staying means facing the parts of me that were built for survival, not peace. It means honoring what those parts protected me from, without letting them run my life anymore. It means acknowledging that the warrior kept me alive—but the shepherd keeps me human.

I don’t have this figured out.

Some days I stay well. Some days I don’t. Some days I catch myself halfway out the door before I realize what I’m doing.

But I’m noticing it now. And that counts.

This isn’t a victory post.
It’s a practice.

A note to myself.

You don’t have to leave to be strong.
You don’t have to run to be faithful.
You don’t have to prove anything today.

Stay.