The People Who Show Up

Time is precious. We all say it.

We put it on coffee mugs and inspirational posters and then go right back to spending it like it's loose change found in the couch cushions.

But lately I've been on the receiving end of a lesson in what time is actually worth.

This is my season of need — and I've discovered I'm surrounded by people who keep handing me theirs.

No invoice. No fine print. Not even a hint that they're keeping score.

It comes in every denomination, too. The one-sentence "checking in on you" text that takes ten seconds to send and somehow carries you through an entire afternoon.

And at the other end of the scale, colleagues quietly absorbing full days of my work, covering my absence at the office like it's the most natural thing in the world.

As if my empty chair were their responsibility.

It isn't. They took it anyway.

None of us can make more time. Which is exactly what makes it the most extravagant gift a person can give.

Humbling doesn't quite cover it. I've spent a lifetime believing generosity was something I extended outward — I'm far less practiced at sitting still and letting it flow the other way.

Turns out receiving gracefully is its own skill, and I'm getting a crash course.

And here's the thing about this kind of gratitude: it doesn't want to just sit there being felt.

It leans forward. It fidgets. It wants a job.

What I'm feeling is more than thankfulness — it's the pull to give back, to become for someone else what these people have been for me.

So that's the plan.

The debt these friends have created can't be repaid to them directly — they'd wave it off anyway.

It gets paid forward, in ten-second texts and shared hours, to whoever needs them next.

Consider this my IOU, written where everyone can see it.