What's yours to keep

I'm getting married at the end of this month! For David and me, planning our wedding has become a chance to take everything our partnership stands for. Its purpose, its values, our intention. And share it with the people we love. That's the part that surprised me. I never really wanted to get married.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home, raised with a very specific picture of who a wedding is for, who it isn't for, and exactly what it's supposed to look like. The tradition arrived packaged and pre-approved. For some people that fits. It brings real joy, a sense of comfort, a belonging that runs deep.

For us, it didn't. So we've kept what's alive for us and quietly set the rest down. Our dogs have roles. There's a barn, whiskey barrels, casual attire, and tables long enough for the people we love, the ones who've supported who David and I are today.

Making choices for and around our wedding have had me thinking about the choices we get to make (and the choices that we tell ourselves we don't have the permission to make) each and every day.

Most of what any of us repeats was never really chosen. The rituals at work, the ones at home, the ones buried inside how we lead, so many of them were handed to us fully formed, and somewhere along the line we started mistaking inherited for true. We keep doing the thing long after anyone's enjoying it, because setting it down feels like breaking something. But nothing about it is fixed. We're always at choice, and while the choice isn't always comfortable or popular, our leadership and our humanity come from how we choose to lead, live, and love in each moment. So here's the quiet question I'd leave with you.

Of the things you do because that's how they've always been done, which ones are still alive for you, and which are you only carrying because no one ever told you that you could set them down?

The ones worth keeping never needed the performance. They only ever needed you, already whole, to be in the room.