Right before Christmas, I found myself on the floor of my office, staring at the ceiling. This cycle of work, burnout, work, burnout has ruled my life for close to a decade. I felt numb. Exhausted to the point of nihilism. I couldn’t believe I was here again.

I was sick of it. And I unceremoniously decided that when I came back to work, it would be with the understanding that everything I’d been trying to hold on to, I was willing to let go. That includes Wit & Delight. The following. The brand deals. All of it. I would show up when I had something to say. I would share things for the joy of it. I was done with performing goodness. It was killing the last ounce of creativity I had left.

So I stopped. I got off the treadmill. I took the break I should have taken years ago.

And then I sat down to write about it.

I’m afraid of being someone who doesn’t care enough. Who lets good things starve to the point they can no longer function. Who withholds something necessary. My attachment feels responsible. It feels required, like it’s the structure keeping my life from collapsing.

I tried to write about nonattachment. About radical compassion. About what I’d learned in the silence. I wrote a draft. It felt good. Instructive. And then I heard a voice in my head say, Bullshit. So I closed it.

I sat with that draft for months. When I finally opened it again, I thought, Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe I was being too hard on myself. But I knew why I’d closed it. 

I’m afraid of being someone who doesn’t care enough. Who lets good things starve to the point they can no longer function. Who withholds something necessary. My attachment feels responsible. It feels required, like it’s the structure keeping my life from collapsing.

If I stop caring this hard, if I stop managing every outcome, what happens then?

And then I watched it happen.

My husband and I were in a fight. I could see exactly what he needed to do. I had the insight. The advice. The thing that would fix it. And I said nothing. I just waited. I watched him work through it himself. And when he did, when he found his own way through, I felt closer to him than I had in months. Like I’d played a huge role in the repair. By saying barely anything. That shouldn’t work. But it did. 

We turned a corner that night. And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

When I didn’t fight with him about the kitchen, he knew what needed to be done. When I waited for my daughter to finish brushing her hair instead of lecturing her, she didn’t fight me. All these ways I was controlling were making life feel harder, like it was resisting me.

All these ways I was controlling were making life feel harder, like it was resisting me.

When I did less—when I cared less about how things were done—things sort of just worked out. That feels wrong to admit. It feels lazy. Like I’ve given up.

Because if life got easier when I cared less, then what the fuck have I been doing?

I thought my attachment was love. I thought caring meant making sure things didn’t fall apart. But falling apart is part of the natural cycle of things. Maybe my care was actually fear. Fear that if I didn’t hold it all together, everything would collapse. Fear that my value lived in my vigilance. That if I stopped managing, I’d stop mattering.

And the grief of that realization is its own kind of pain. Because it means all that suffering was optional. Self-imposed. A story I told myself about what it means to be good and helpful and a woman. 

So here’s what I’m sitting with now: What if my care is sometimes about control? What have I been making harder than necessary? What am I afraid to see? 

I’m writing this for the woman reading on her phone at 11 pm, exhausted from managing everyone’s emotions all day, wondering why she feels so empty. For the person who just snapped at their kid again and hates themselves for it. For the creator performing their values online while their real life is falling apart.

I thought my attachment was love. I thought caring meant making sure things didn’t fall apart. But falling apart is part of the natural cycle of things. Maybe my care was actually fear. Fear that if I didn’t hold it all together, everything would collapse. Fear that my value lived in my vigilance. That if I stopped managing, I’d stop mattering.

Here’s what I understand to be true: When I cared less about how things were done, when I just waited… things sort of just worked out. And that feels wrong to admit. But it’s real.

And maybe that’s what freedom actually is. Not needing the world to change in order to feel okay. Not needing to control everything in order to matter. Just… letting it be. Letting them be. Letting yourself be. Just for a moment.

Kate is the founder of Wit & Delight. She is currently learning how to play tennis and is forever testing the boundaries of her creative muscle. Follow her on Instagram at @witanddelight_.