I have come to understand that rest is not simply a matter of distance.
I can leave town. I can change scenery. I can stand somewhere beautiful with no immediate demands in front of me and still feel the same pressure sitting in my chest. The same low hum of responsibility, the awareness that things are unfolding back home whether I am present or not.
Cullman County does not stay put when I travel. It comes with me.
I see future events before they happen, think about the coverage that will be expected the moment they begin and mentally draft preview articles, opening paragraphs and questions long before they are assigned.
I anticipate problems before they surface because experience has taught me they will. That awareness never turns off.
I left recently hoping to interrupt that cycle. Five days away, that was the plan. On the third morning, it ended. A last-minute issue. One of those situations that cannot wait, cannot be ignored and cannot be handed off. By midday, I was headed home.
The trip itself is almost beside the point. What mattered was the realization that even if it had lasted the full five days, nothing fundamental would have changed. I was not failing at rest. Rest was failing because it cannot reach something wired this deeply.
There is always something waiting. Another event that deserves attention the day it happens, an issue where silence would be easier but dishonest or another moment where someone has to speak plainly even knowing it will not be welcomed by everyone.
I write editorials to help others process what is happening around them. I believe in that work. But I also write them to keep myself from hardening.
To pull weight into the open instead of letting it settle quietly and do damage.
To admit what rarely gets said out loud – that caring at this level is exhausting and often unresolved.
I want the best for this place. For everyone in it. That instinct is real. It is also unreasonable. Communities are not tidy. Healing does not happen without discomfort. Wanting peace does not make conflict disappear. Knowing that does not lessen the toll of carrying it.
What wears you down is not disagreement or criticism. It is responsibility without closure. It is putting effort into work that matters and still watching problems linger. It is learning, over time, that doing the right thing does not guarantee relief.
I am tired of feeling tired.
Not physically. Not the kind of tired sleep fixes. This is the kind that settles in when movement stops. The kind that follows you even when you leave. The kind that waits patiently for you to admit it is not going anywhere.
And still, I stay engaged. Not because I believe everything will be fixed or that peace is waiting just ahead. I stay because disengagement would cost more than exhaustion. Because turning away would mean abandoning the very thing that shaped me.
Loving a place like this is not passive. It is not clean. It is not restful. It is a commitment that gives meaning while quietly taking its share in return.
So if there is no place I can go where Cullman County does not follow, then this is the truth I will carry honestly – that caring this deeply comes with a cost, and that cost is not something you pay once.
It is something you choose, again and again.
And tomorrow, I will choose it again.
