Life after the Comma
I used to think the hard part was the breaking. But sometimes, it’s the pausing that undoes you. There’s a pause in every story that feels like the end — but it’s not.
I call it the comma. That space between who you were and who you’re becoming.
And it can feel more disorienting than any disaster.
For us, the comma came in the life we left behind.
We were surviving in the States, but that’s all we were doing.
Running two businesses. A full-time job. Constant pressure. Constant exhaustion.
It wasn’t sustainable. And deep down, we knew it.
We didn’t have a big dramatic breakdown. It was more like slowly realizing we couldn’t live like that anymore. Saying yes to Mexico felt like a breath we didn’t know we’d been holding. A pause. A reset. A deep exhale.
But I’m going to be honest. Life after the comma is still messy.
We live with flooding now.
We live in the unknown.
And I’m still learning how to adjust to the quiet.
Some days, the stillness feels like a gift.
Other days, it feels like something I don’t know how to hold.
I’ve literally stood in the eye of a hurricane before, that eerie stillness where everything suddenly goes quiet. But it’s the backside of the storm that hits the hardest.
This season feels a lot like that. We’re not in the storm anymore, but we’re still carrying what it left behind. And we’re trying to build something new in the middle of it.
This is life after the comma.
Not the dream. Not the highlight reel.
Just real life with real grace in the middle of it.
It’s quieter.
It’s slower.
It’s harder in different ways.
But we’re not surviving anymore. We’re learning how to live.
And I don’t want to rush this part.
If you’re in the pause, the comma season, I just want to tell you this:
Don’t go back to what broke you.
Don’t give up just because you don’t know what’s next.
The pause isn’t the end of the story.
It’s where the next part gets written.
And it might be quieter than you expected.
But it might also be more beautiful than you imagined.
Don’t quit at the comma, God is still writing your story.
– Trish 💛
