Presence Over Output, Porch Over Performance

I keep coming back to that image — Mimi on the front porch, baby watching, scrubbing down a rental car she didn't ask for, in a situation neither of us chose. And she's enjoying it. That's not something I manufactured. I didn't coach her into a good attitude. It arrived as a gift, and the honest question I had to sit with was whether I was receiving it as one, or just quietly expecting it because that's who she is.

I told her I appreciated how she was accepting what God had given us. That felt right to say. But somewhere in the same conversation I was also thinking about maximum potential, about whether I'm leveraging my life the way I should be. And I wonder if those two things are more connected than they look — because the pressure to maximize can make me scan past the porch moment entirely. If I'm always measuring output, I might miss the thing that's actually in front of me.

The tiredness is real. A month without our car, the rental logistics, the insurance calls — none of that is small. And tired is a condition, not just a feeling. It shapes whether I'm actually present or just physically in the room. I think today I was mostly present, but I know what it looks like when I'm not. The body is there, the words are fine, but something behind the eyes has already moved on to the next problem.

What I keep returning to is the difference between faithfulness and maximum output. Those aren't the same thing, and I think I sometimes treat them like they are. Faithfulness tonight might just be asking Mimi one real question about how she's doing — not the car, not the timeline, her. That's not a small assignment dressed up as a simple one. It requires me to actually slow down and want the answer.

I was reminded of the line in Psalms — day after day he carries our burden — and there's something in that rhythm, day after day, that loosens the grip of the maximize-everything instinct. It's not one heroic effort. It's showing up again tomorrow. Mimi seems to understand that better than I do right now. She took the inconvenience and made it an afternoon on the porch with the baby. I don't need to sanitize rental cars the way she does, but I do need to let her be that person without quietly filing it under "things that don't matter to me." It matters to her. That's enough.

The through-line I keep finding is this: the tiredness, the pressure to do more, the temptation to receive her goodness as a given — they all pull me in the same direction, away from what's actually happening. The corrective isn't a new system. It's just paying attention. To the porch. To her. To the day I'm actually in.