I let school teach academics.
But I teach my kids the life lessons.

And lately, there have been a lot of them.

One of the hardest is what I call Sitting in the Ick.

I’ve always been a fixer. A planner. Someone who likes to check the box and move on. But life has a way of humbling even the best planners. Sometimes, there’s nothing to fix — at least not right away. Sometimes, all you can do is sit in the discomfort and trust that it won’t last forever.

This year has tested that more than ever.
My car was stolen.
We undertook a major house project that resulted in email exchanges copying lawyers.
The water line from the curb into the house was leaking into our basement, and we were on borrowed time to fix it.
And to top it all off, I just received a severance notice from my employer.

Through it all, my mantra has been the same:
It could be worse.
There’s a plan for me.
It will all work out, because it always does — and it’s usually better on the other side.

That doesn’t mean it’s not still stressful.
Sitting in the ick never feels good. It looks like waiting for a repair date three weeks out. Hitting “send” on a job application and hearing nothing for weeks. Smiling through back-to-school photos while silently calculating repair costs in your head. It’s messy and uncomfortable — but it’s also where the growth happens.

Recently, after the first week of school, my son had a moment of emotional release. He felt overwhelmed. So many new changes.

I told him it was totally normal. That those feelings wouldn’t go away overnight. That the only way through was one step at a time — one class, one day, one deep breath at a time.

And then I told him the truth: I was feeling the same way.
Because new beginnings don’t just belong to kids. For me, it meant starting over too — meeting new parents, new teachers, learning new ways of communicating. Change stretches all of us, no matter our age.

These are the hardest lessons to teach. The big ones. The ones with big emotions.

I had a mentor once tell me that the key to emotional intelligence was not getting too high and not getting too low — but learning to ride right in the middle. He was right. And that middle space? It’s not comfortable. It’s the ick.

But maybe if we model that for our kids, they’ll catch on.
They pick up on so much — our habits, our expressions, our bad language. 😉 Maybe they’ll pick this up, too.

Because sitting in the ick doesn’t mean we’re stuck.
It means something new is forming.

And if we can learn to stay there — to trust it, to breathe through it — we might just find that the ick isn’t an ending at all.
It’s the beginning of whatever comes next.

What “ick” are you sitting in right now? Maybe it’s not the end you think it is — maybe it’s the start of something new. I’d love to hear what you’re learning through your own messy middle. Share in the comments or just take a moment to sit with it today. 💛