I can disappoint someone and still have a clear conscience.
That feels like a miracle to say out loud.
For most of my life, I believed someone else’s disappointment was mine to carry. If someone was unhappy with me, I carried it. If I didn’t measure up to someone’s expectations, that was mine to hold. If someone said, “I’m disappointed in you,” I felt the weight of it, and it crushed me.
And so, for decades, my effort to avoid those words drove me to bend over backwards, accommodate, sacrifice, and stretch myself beyond reasonable limits, even at the cost of my health and what mattered most.
It has taken me years—one uncomfortable, self-honoring decision at a time—to realize something I never imagined I would believe.
I can have a clear conscience and still disappoint someone.
I didn’t know it then, but creating a page-a-day calendar would become one of the greatest tests of whether I truly believed what I’d been writing and trying to live all these years.
I’ve been dreaming about this project for a long time. But not every dream comes to life the moment we’re ready for it. Sometimes there are pieces beyond our control that must come together first. In the fall of 2025, they finally did.
What people might not realize when they flip to each daily quote is how each one was painstakingly chosen. I went back through my book Only Love Today, looking for words that could meet someone in a hard Tuesday, a lonely Thursday, or a heartbreaking Sunday. I searched for words that offered a reset on days that pulled them away from what mattered most.
As I revisited those words, I realized the truths I had been practicing for years had become my first response in difficult moments.
Just days before the final submission deadline, I got an urgent call from my daughter Natalie. My ultra independent, problem-solving firstborn daughter was scared. Something alarming was happening, and she needed a hand to hold. I didn’t even hesitate. I immediately closed my laptop, tossed three days’ worth of clothes into a bag, six Coke Zeros in a cooler, and started driving.
I realized I might miss the publisher’s deadline, but I wouldn’t miss the most important thing. And I wouldn’t have to carry the weight of regret. Years earlier, I’d made a different choice, and I’d promised myself I would never again let my work come before the people I loved.
A few weeks after the pre-order link had become available this spring, I received an email with the dreaded words from the publisher:
“Sales are low.”
At first, my default response kicked in:
You’ve disappointed them.
They shouldn’t have taken a chance on you.
You blew it.
I could feel the protective part of me reaching for an old story that had spent years confusing achievement and approval with love and acceptance. But this time, I gently set that story back down because I knew love wasn’t something success could earn or failure could take away.
I actually started laughing.
“Rachel, it’s May 2026! And this is a 2027 calendar! Give yourself some time. Trust the work. They haven’t seen it yet.”
I found myself walking over to the basement ping pong table where I’d spent hours that fall choosing and shaping each entry. I sat down.
And that’s when I heard the kindest, most nurturing voice inside me whisper:
“Don’t you dare forget the endless hours you sat here pouring your heart into this project.
Don’t you dare forget the fifteen years it took to live these words before you ever placed them in a calendar.
Don’t you dare let one sales report become the loudest voice in the room.”
I realized I could have a clear conscience and still disappoint someone.
Then, earlier this month, the first box of calendars finally arrived.
There was no fancy unboxing ceremony videoed and posted to social media. It was just me and my 14-year-old, four-legged companion, Banjo, in the comfort of my kitchen where I could cry freely and take it all in.
When Scott got home, I handed him the calendar.
After reading the introduction, he looked up with unmistakable pride and asked, “Did you put something special for my birthday?”
On their birthdays, I’d chosen words that made me think of each member of my family. I had no idea anyone would even think to ask!
Scott flipped to December 2nd, read the first line, smiled, and said,
“Yep. That’s me.”
Watching Scott find himself in those pages confirmed who should receive the very first calendar. It belonged to the child who was the reason the words Only Love Today existed in the first place.
A few days later, I drove 235 miles to see Natalie, the young woman who had unknowingly taught me that love begins with the way we speak to ourselves.
We went out for sushi, came home, changed into our pajamas, and curled up on the couch together. I told her I had a surprise.
Natalie wrapped herself in a blanket like she always does and waited while I reached into my bag.
Her face broke into the biggest smile when she saw what it was.
I sat quietly beside her as she read the introduction, the story of us, and the moment my healing began.
“I remember,” she whispered when she reached the part about the rice spilling onto the floor. She brushed away a tear from the corner of her eye.
Then she turned to January.
She read the first entry and smiled.
Then another.
And another.
“I like this,” she said softly.
Natalie kept turning pages until she’d read all of January.
“I’m going to start using the calendar now,” she said. Then she looked down at the cover and laughed. “But I don’t want to rip off the pages. It’s too beautiful.”
I put my arms around her and closed my eyes, as if I could memorize the moment. Not often do we feel all is right with the world, but for that moment, it was.
Fifteen years ago, those words began as something I desperately needed.
Today, I watched the little girl who inspired them begin making them her own.
And in that moment, I realized the greatest success of this calendar will never be how many copies it sells. It will be the number of people who set down a burden they were never meant to carry.
Because every unnecessary burden becomes another distraction from the life waiting to be lived today.
Things like: shame, regret, the pressure to prove ourselves, and the fear of letting other people down. Those things fill our hands and our minds until there is little room left for what matters most.
That’s what these words have done for me. They helped me discover that my hands were never meant to hold everyone else’s expectations.
They were meant to hold the people I love.
They were meant to create work I believe in.
They were meant to receive the joy that arrives when my conscience is clear, even if someone else wishes I had chosen differently.
And perhaps that’s what freedom looks like.
Finding the courage to set down what was never ours to carry, so our hands are finally free for what is.
My hand in yours,
Rachel
If you’d like one…
Calendars begin shipping this month, and I wanted to make sure my Hands Free Mama readers knew this dream had finally become real: a collection of the words we’ve been returning to for years, now in a form you can hold in your hands.
Creating it became far more than a dream project. It reminded me that the words we choose to keep close have the power to change the way we live.
If you’d like a daily companion for the year ahead, or you’re thinking of giving one to someone who could use a little more compassion and a little less pressure, you can pre-order the calendar through Bookshop, Amazon, Walmart, Books-a-Million, BulkBookStore, as well as retailers in Canada and in the UK. You can also order it through your favorite local bookstore.
Print quantities were set early, so ordering now is the best way to ensure you receive a calendar, especially if you’re hoping to have extras to give as gifts.
Thank you for believing in my work and helping these words find their way into more hands, homes, and hearts. I am eternally grateful for your presence along this journey.
