Learning to exhale: Lessons from Gary the Snake

Lina and I at La Ronde - June 2026

As I lay beside my daughter tonight, her chest moving up and down ever so rhythmically, I can’t help but think about how perfectly normal her life seems. At five years old, her “end of the world” is losing her new stuffie, a purple and blue snake named Gary. Twenty minutes before this, Chris, Lina and I were frantically tearing apart the house in search of him. We were about to throw in the towel, when I heard Chris loudly exhale, “I found him!”. Crisis averted.

Seeing her breathe in and out, my mind drifts back to my own life at five years old—my mom and dad separating and my brother and I going to live in a shelter with her until she could find us a new place to call home. To this day, I can’t stand the sight of a Nutri-grain bar.

They remind me of my brokenness.

There is something healing about being able to give your children a life you never had. Of seeing who you could have become, if you were provided with the same circumstances. However, there is also something heartbreaking. Of knowing that you had to make your way in this world despite yours.

But this is the journey of a cycle breaker. Of someone who had to get creative with the hand they were dealt.

Three days earlier, I had been given the opportunity to sit on a career panel discussion for my work’s student association. I was the “seasoned” panelist with wisdom to share. There was something so exciting about having the chance to connect with these students—with their whole lives ahead of them—and to be able to provide some guidance. After the event, I got to chat with two brave students who shared their career journeys with me. After sharing mine, I remember being stunned by their reaction to the fact that I started working at fifteen-years-old. “That’s so young”, I remember one saying. And to be honest, now that I think about it, it really was.

At fifteen, I remember the agony I felt about not being able to have all the same designer clothes my friends had (to be clear the designers I’m talking about were American Eagle or Hollister). I remember feeling embarrassed by the fact that I couldn’t have my mom pay for the Outdoor Education class I wanted to take (because it was an extra $300 that she just didn’t have in her budget). Starting to work at fifteen might seem entrepreneurial now, but it was really about being poor and not wanting to be limited by something I had no control over.

I remember the rush I felt receiving my first paycheck and the promise I made to myself that “I would never live like this again”. I was determined to pull myself up by my hand-me-down bootstraps and make sure that I would never be looked down on as being “one of the poor kids”.

And now, a little over twenty years later, I’m living the life that fifteen-year-old Lydia would have never dreamed was possible.

But even with all of this—this stability, this version of adulthood I built from scratch—my body still reacts like it’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s a hard habit to break when you grew up learning that safety wasn’t something you could count on. I’ve worked so hard to get here that relaxing feels like a risk. Enjoying what I have feels like letting my guard down. And letting my guard down never felt safe—because often, it wasn’t.

Tonight, lying beside Lina, I can feel that tension sitting right under my ribs. She’s breathing like someone who has never had to worry about anything bigger than a missing stuffed snake. Her whole world is soft and predictable. And I’m grateful for that—more grateful than I can even put into words—but it also brings up this quiet ache in my chest. Because at five years old, I didn’t know what it meant to exhale. I didn’t know what it meant to trust that everything would be fine tomorrow.

And even now, with a life that is objectively privileged, I still catch myself bracing.

Especially now with Chris losing his job.

The old version of me—the one who learned to survive by taking control—wants to jump in and fix it. To make a plan, to carry the weight, to make sure we don’t slip. But I’m not doing that this time. I’m letting him handle it. Not because I don’t care, but because it’s not mine to fix. Because part of breaking cycles is learning when to step back. When to trust someone else can handle it. When to believe that everything doesn’t have to depend on me.

It’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar. But it’s also necessary.

All of a sudden, Lina shifts in her sleep and she cuddles in close to me. It’s such a small thing, but it pulls me out of my head for a moment and back into our reality. In this room and in this life, I have created, she’s safe. She’s loved. She’s able to just be a five-year-old kid who doesn’t need to be on high alert. And maybe that’s the whole point of this life I’ve created: giving her a place where calm is her starting point.

I don’t know if I’ll ever truly learn how to relax into what I’ve built. I don’t know if that little girl in me, the one who never knew how to exhale, will ever stop scanning for danger. But I do know this: every time I watch Lina breathe, something in me heals. Something in me acknowledges that things can stay good. That not everything is a crisis. That sometimes the world really is as simple as finding Gary the snake before bedtime.

Do I believe that right now? I’d be lying if I said I do. But what I do know is that every day with her is like seeing life for the first time. Because she shows me a version of childhood I never had. And maybe that’s how I learn to exhale—slowly, and lovingly, through her.