Some mornings, the heaviness shows up before your feet even find the floor. 

It’s not loud. It doesn’t shout. It just settles in beside you, quiet and familiar—like a shadow that doesn’t need to explain itself.

That’s how I’ve felt these past few days. Not overwhelmed. Not panicked. Just… off. Like the soul knows something the rest of me hasn’t caught up to yet.

Yesterday, I got a text from a friend—not someone I’ve met in person, but someone whose story echoes my own. We share the same battle scar: oral cancer. Her journey came first, and mine followed. We were both cared for by the same surgeon, Dr. Kaka—a man with kind eyes and steady hands. He walked us both through fire.

She told me that her latest scan back in April showed a small nodule on her lung. Probably nothing. These things come and go. But still—there it was. That word, nodule, has a way of pressing down on you, even when you know better. I’ve been in that place, too. They found something on my own lung once. It disappeared by the next scan—but not before it quietly rearranged the furniture in my chest.

As I was sitting with that concern, I heard more news—of a woman I once knew from church. Someone who worshiped with us when my best friend, Danny, was pastor. She and her husband eventually moved to South Georgia. They were still on my social feed. We weren’t close, but we were connected—by Sundays, by a meal, by a dozen shared handshakes across time. Yesterday, she lost her life in a car accident. She was 37. A wife. A mother of four kids. Her family had just returned from a mission trip to Honduras.

There’s no good way to hold that kind of loss. No words that feel big enough.

So no, I can’t point to a single thing making this week feel heavy. But the weight is there.

It’s grief. It’s worry. It’s that strange ache that comes from carrying the sorrows of others in your spirit—even when those sorrows aren’t technically yours.

Sometimes grief doesn’t come barreling in. It tiptoes. Layered. Stacked quietly beneath everyday things. You make breakfast. You answer emails. You check the weather. And all the while, you’re carrying the ache of news you didn’t expect, of people you loved in ways that don’t always make sense on paper.

Mental health isn’t always about a crisis. Sometimes it’s just the quiet cost of caring. The emotional hangover that comes from loving people so deeply that their pain leaves an imprint on your day. Even when your scan is clear, it doesn’t mean the fear is gone. Even when the tragedy didn’t land at your door, your spirit still flinches when it hears it knock.

It’s the weight of waiting. Of uncertainty. Of bearing witness to a world that breaks, sometimes beautifully, sometimes cruelly.

If you’ve been feeling this too—if the world feels louder than usual, heavier in your chest—you’re not broken. You’re not “too sensitive.” You’re human. And that humanity is holy.

Today, I’m holding space for my friend. I’m holding space for that family. I’m holding space for the ache that doesn’t need to be justified to be real. And if your heart feels stretched, too—just know: you’re not the only one.

We don’t always need answers. But we do need each other.

If this resonates, I’d be honored if you left a note. We’re all carrying something.