you can't stay, but you can come back.

(a meditation on presence, leaving, returning, and being human)

Jul 14, 2025

Those who’ve been paying attention will know, a beautiful guy was in my life last week. He lives in Paris. He isn’t looking for anything long-term, and if he were, it would still be long-distance. But it was intense. And beautiful. And important. And powerful. It was full of joy, and love, and learning, and lessons.

He left on Wednesday, and it was right that he left. It was right that he left. And I was sad. I was sad that he left, that he couldn’t stay, that he didn’t stay. And, it was right that he left.

And what’s true is: he can come back. We left doors and hearts and numbers open. He couldn’t stay, but he can come back.

Growing up, most of my family (and *all* the family I was close to beyond sisterduck and mamaduck) was far away, across an ocean in Canada. We’d go visit, they’d come visit. And every time, whoever was leaving, it was painful. Because we don’t like change. And we do like to try to hold on to good things while they’re happening, even when that comes at the cost of letting the good thing end peacefully.

I can hear my Auntie Joan’s voice in my head even now. I think this is a memory, but it may be a healing voice that’s taken on her cadence. Maybe both.

She said:
you can't stay, but you can come back.

And I’ve been thinking about how that line echoes through so many parts of life. Especially when it comes to sobriety. To meditation. To emotional regulation. To healing. To recovery.

I can’t stay motivated on one task for long. I really struggle with that. But I can come back to it. Minutes, days, or decades later.

I don’t know if everyone can stay happy shiny sober forever. But I do know people can come back. After relapse, after struggle, after trying something new, after everything - we can always come back to recovery.

When we try desperately to stay in a particular emotional state—when we try to stay calm, or grounded, or focused, or okay, or happy, we are setting ourselves up for failure. That’s not what we’re meant to do. That’s not how humans work.

When it comes to my meditation practice (which I still resist every chance I get, and have full moments of hate towards), the story we often tell ourselves is that we’re supposed to have a completely empty brain. No thoughts. And that when we do think, or when we get distracted, we’ve done it wrong. We are wrong.

That is not true.

When I make it to the cushion, or the mat, or a chair, and I decide I’ll concentrate on my breath for a few minutes, guided or not—it goes like this:

I sit down. For two seconds I focus on my breath. Then I think about what I want for my next meal.
Then I come back to my breath.
Then I think about lunch from three days ago with a friend.
I wonder how he’s doing.
Then I come back to my breath.
Then I think about the last fight I had with another friend.
I wonder what he really thinks of me.
Then I spiral.
Then I come back to my breath.
Then I get frustrated.
Then I come back to my breath.
Then I feel my toes hurt.
I look at my feet.
I think about how they look.
I think about how I look.
I get overwhelmed.
I spiral again.
And then, I come back to my breath.

The point is not staying with the breath. The point is coming back to it.

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A friend of mine has an important phone call coming up this week. There are so many things she wants to communicate, things she needs to say and have heard - it’s high stakes. She said, “I’ll be fine as long as I can stay calm.”

And I just - no. No. That’s too much pressure. She lives with anxiety. She feels everything at 5,000%. And I suggested that maybe the best goal for her call next week isn’t to stay calm. Maybe the goal is to come back to calm. Again and again. To come back to herself every time she gets activated, every time the emotions swell, every time her nervous system lights up. She will almost certainly be frustrated and spoken over and triggered at various points in this call. If she approaches it with a binary calm/not calm vision, it’s tempting to think “well I’m not calm now, I’ve fucked it, no point carrying on.” Whereas “oh, I can feel myself losing it, time to [insert grounding trick here - tap, breathe, tongue on roof of mouth, blink, stick middle finger up at person on phone, whatever]” … well, we’ll see if it helps her. But I think it might help some of you, too.

Because honestly, expecting any of us to stay calm, regulated, kind, grounded, okay - especially right now, with the horrors we are all swimming in and relentlessly witnessing - is just too much.

And I want to say “the horrors” and I also want to name them, because I don’t want to distance myself from them by reducing them to a word. They are people. These horrors are happening to people. Lives are being taken. Lives are being lost. Lives are being changed. And it is too much. And it is constant. In so many places, in so many ways.

So if we are awake at all - if we are conscious, if we are paying attention, if we are sober or sensitive or overwhelmed - we will get knocked off-center. We will spiral. We will lose track of ourselves. And knowing that doesn’t mean we have to give up, there’s no point trying.

Being able to come home to ourselves is what allows us to go out into the world, doing the things, getting activated, feeling everything - and then remembering to take our path to come back. We don’t do this work to stay safe at home. We do it to be able to go out, and to come back.

So maybe that’s it. That’s the message.

You can’t stay. But you can come back.
To your breath.
To your self.
To your healing.
To your practices.
To your people.
To your presence.

How does this resonate?

you can't stay, but you can come back.

(a meditation on presence, leaving, returning, and being human)

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