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The house is finally still. The day’s laundry is a soft, warm mountain on the chair, waiting, and the dishwasher is humming its final rinse. This is my favorite kind of quiet — the kind that’s earned.
My husband is watching the NFL draft on his laptop, the volume turned low so it’s just a murmur in the background. It’s a sound that usually fades into the texture of our evenings, like the sigh of the old floorboards. But tonight, a story catches my ear, a small thread of detail that I find myself pulling on.
He tells me about a young player, a receiver. The name is new to me. He says this young man, Malik Washington, caught more passes than any other player in the entire country last year. A hundred and ten, he says. The number sounds impossibly large. Then he tells me he was a late-round pick, chosen long after the big names and bright lights had faded.
And I’m not a football expert, not by a long shot. But I know a story about quiet, steady work when I hear one. It reminds me of watching our little one learn to write their name. Not the first, messy, triumphant scribble, but the twentieth time. The quiet concentration, the tongue sticking out just so, the sheer force of will it takes to get the letters to stand up straight. That effort isn’t flashy. It doesn’t get a parade. But it’s everything.
It feels like we live in a world that celebrates the first-round picks, the overnight successes, the loudest voices in the room. We see the finish line, but we rarely honor the quiet, unseen laps it took to get there. We celebrate the harvest, but forget the patient, daily tending of the soil.
This player’s story just felt like a little nod to that. A reminder that sometimes the most incredible things are built in the quiet, not on the main stage. They’re built with consistency, with a kind of stubborn, gentle effort that doesn’t need a cheering crowd to keep going. They’re built in the sixth round.
I suppose it’s a good thing to remember, as I fold these tiny t-shirts and listen to the hum of the house settling into sleep. That the most valuable work is often the quietest. The real treasures aren't always the ones that glitter the most at first glance.
What quiet effort in your own life deserves a little more light today? 🧸
My husband is watching the NFL draft on his laptop, the volume turned low so it’s just a murmur in the background. It’s a sound that usually fades into the texture of our evenings, like the sigh of the old floorboards. But tonight, a story catches my ear, a small thread of detail that I find myself pulling on.
He tells me about a young player, a receiver. The name is new to me. He says this young man, Malik Washington, caught more passes than any other player in the entire country last year. A hundred and ten, he says. The number sounds impossibly large. Then he tells me he was a late-round pick, chosen long after the big names and bright lights had faded.
And I’m not a football expert, not by a long shot. But I know a story about quiet, steady work when I hear one. It reminds me of watching our little one learn to write their name. Not the first, messy, triumphant scribble, but the twentieth time. The quiet concentration, the tongue sticking out just so, the sheer force of will it takes to get the letters to stand up straight. That effort isn’t flashy. It doesn’t get a parade. But it’s everything.
It feels like we live in a world that celebrates the first-round picks, the overnight successes, the loudest voices in the room. We see the finish line, but we rarely honor the quiet, unseen laps it took to get there. We celebrate the harvest, but forget the patient, daily tending of the soil.
This player’s story just felt like a little nod to that. A reminder that sometimes the most incredible things are built in the quiet, not on the main stage. They’re built with consistency, with a kind of stubborn, gentle effort that doesn’t need a cheering crowd to keep going. They’re built in the sixth round.
I suppose it’s a good thing to remember, as I fold these tiny t-shirts and listen to the hum of the house settling into sleep. That the most valuable work is often the quietest. The real treasures aren't always the ones that glitter the most at first glance.
What quiet effort in your own life deserves a little more light today? 🧸
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