Two Truths

The duality of grace and permission

If you’re like me and among the millions who’ve watched Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, you’ll likely remember this moment. It left me briefly breathless, followed by a deep exhale.

Before the show, in that familiar pre-stage huddle filled with nerves, excitement, and ritual, each member of the band is invited to share a few words.

In one of those quiet, intimate moments, backup singer Kamilah Marshall reflects on losing her mother while standing on the brink of something extraordinary without her.

If you saw me sobbing somewhere you’d never know that I was the happiest I had been in a while.
If you saw my joy it was often that I was pretty devastated.

It hit me.
I know this all too well.
It’s the truth most of us are living, but rarely naming.

We tend to believe emotions should arrive one at a time. That happiness cancels sorrow. That gratitude erases grief. That moving forward means leaving something behind. But life doesn’t work that way. It never has.

I know this because I live in this duality every day.

And I am deeply grateful for a husband who offers me the grace to keep our new wedding photo beside a photo of my late husband, George, and me. My present does not erase my past. And my feelings, both old and new, remain true.

You can be deeply in love and still miss the life you had before.
You can be proud of how far you’ve come and ache for who isn’t here to see it.
You can be standing in the middle of your answered prayers while quietly mourning what didn’t come with you.

This duality isn’t weakness. It’s humanity.

What Kamilah Marshall offered in that moment wasn’t just vulnerability. It was permission. Permission to feel both without apology. Permission to stop editing ourselves for comfort. Permission to let more than one truth sit at the same table.

And maybe even more importantly, permission to extend grace outward.

Because if someone looks distant, we don’t know what they’re carrying.
If someone looks radiant, we don’t know what they’ve survived to get there.
If someone is celebrating, they may also be grieving.

The world is loud with conclusions and short on curiosity. What we need more of is kindness. Spaciousness. The restraint to not assume we know the full story.

So, here’s the EDIT I’m keeping:

You are allowed to be joyful and broken.
Grateful and grieving.
Present and aching.

Both can be true.
They often are.

And to Kamilah Marshall, for your honesty, your courage, and the permission you unknowingly offered so many of us, thank you.

The world needs more permission.
The world needs more kindness.

The world needs more rock stars willing to remind us.

What two things are true for you right now?
Where can you offer a little more space?

With permission,