Hey Reader,

This past year we've been staying at Aurelie’s parents’ place. This is the house she grew up in.

Out front there’s this row of bushes that makes a kind of green fence. On our side, they’ve been eaten by bugs and started drying out. A few months ago, we had a gardener come and cut back the dead parts. Since then, Aurelie’s been taking care of it. Spraying treatments and checking in on it, hoping it can recover.

It’s been there for decades. She’s attached to it, I can tell.

So I said I’d help.

I studied permaculture. Plus, I grew up on a farm. And since COVID, I’ve been really into gardening. Today I felt like pruning the remaining dry parts. Just helping it breathe a little, so the green could come back stronger.

I told her what I was planning to do. But when she saw it afterward, she got emotional.

To her, it looked like I’d cut too much.
She said she wanted to enjoy it now, not wait years for it to grow back.

And in that moment, I remembered a chapter I read the night before. It’s from this parenting book I’m reading. The chapter’s called Cut the But.

The whole idea is that the word “but” kills everything that came before it. So when you say something like “I’m sorry, but…” what you’re really saying is “I’m not sorry.”

It turns the apology into a justification, a lecture, or something that makes it about you again.

The book says: just stop. If you feel the “but” coming, don’t finish the sentence. End it there. Let it hang and stay with the other person.

So I tried that.

I said,
Yeah. I know this is hard for you.
I cut more than you would’ve liked.
And I’m sorry.

That’s it.

Even though I wanted to explain, to say how I was trying to help, that I thought it would recover better this way, that I meant well. All of it.

But I didn’t.
I just stayed there with her. With her reaction and the silence that came after.

And the truth is, that silence can be hard. That moment where no one says anything, when you feel the pull to fill the gap, to clean it up, to soften it.

But I stayed quiet. I let it be.

That’s what I wanted to share today.
That tiny, uncomfortable pause.
The pull to explain.
And the choice not to.

Happy week-end!

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