The Ones Who Arrive Early
- Fabienne
- 18 minutes ago
- 4 min read
On carrying, waiting, and learning to stay with ourselves
Maybe you recognise this moment:
You’re sitting across from someone you care about.
They’re talking, explaining, circling, hoping.
And somewhere inside you, there’s already a quiet knowing.
You don’t interrupt.
You don’t correct.
You stay present, kind, attentive.
But part of you is already ahead — sensing where this is going, what it will cost, what won’t change unless something deeper shifts.
If this feels familiar, you might be someone who arrives early.
Early in conversations.
Early in insight.
Early in sensing when something is off.
Early in understanding what’s really happening beneath the surface.
When care slowly turns into carrying
For many of us, this didn’t start in adulthood.
Think back — not to a specific memory necessarily, but to a felt position:
Being the one who stayed calm when others were overwhelmed.
Being the one who noticed emotional shifts before they were spoken.
Being the one who could “handle more.”
Maybe you learned to wait before speaking.
To dimm your truth.
To read the room and adjust.
Not because anyone asked you to —
but because connection seemed to depend on it.
So the nervous system learned a subtle rule: If I hold this early, the relationship stays intact.
At first, this looks like care.
Empathy. Emotional intelligence.
But over time, it can quietly turn into something heavier: carrying.
Carrying clarity others aren’t ready for.
Carrying discomfort so no one else has to.
Carrying the emotional weight of waiting — alone.
The invisible cost of arriving ahead
From the outside, this pattern often looks like strength.
You’re insightful. Grounded. Resilient.
People come to you for perspective.
You’re often the one others lean on.
From the inside, it can feel different.
You leave conversations tired — not because they were intense, but because you were holding.
You notice yourself thinking about someone long after the interaction ends.
You sense a quiet loneliness even in close relationships.
You understand — but you are not fully met.
And because you can tolerate ambiguity, you often stay longer than feels good.
Not because you don’t know better —
but because your system learned that leaving early is more dangerous than staying tired.
The moment when something starts to shift for the ones who arrive early
Change rarely comes through insight alone.
If you’re reading this, you likely already understand the pattern.
The shift comes somewhere else.
It might look like this:
Another holiday passes, and your body feels heavy instead of hopeful.
Another conversation circles the same point, and you feel flat instead of engaged.
Another promise is made and something in you doesn’t rise to meet it anymore.
You don’t necessarily think, I’m done.
You just feel tired.
Not dramatic tiredness.
A quiet, settled fatigue.
This is often the hinge.
The moment when carrying begins to feel heavier than letting go.
Learning to stay — without carrying
Here’s the subtle but crucial distinction:
Loving presence feels like being with someone.
Premature carrying feels like trying to get somewhere for them.
Presence sounds like:“I’m here.”“I hear you.”“This matters.”
Carrying sounds like:“I’ll hold this so you don’t have to yet.”
“I’ll stay steady so nothing breaks.”
“I’ll wait.”
And the body knows the difference.
Presence leaves you intact.
Carrying leaves you depleted.
This shows up in small, everyday moments:
saying one more thoughtful thing when your body wanted to stop
staying longer than you want
tracking someone else’s process more than your own
The practice isn’t to become less caring.
It’s to become less automatic.
To notice when you lean forward energetically.
And to gently (sometimes silently), come back to yourself.
This is theirs.
I don’t have to arrive first.
Where our animals often reflect this pattern
For many people, this way of relating doesn’t only live in human relationships.
It shows up very clearly with animal companions.
Animals are exquisitely attuned to nervous system states.
They feel when their human is carrying too much.
When life is paused in waiting.
When presence has been replaced by effort.
This can show up in different ways:
an animal becoming vigilant or restless
increased anxiety or clinginess
withdrawing or watching closely
Not because something is “wrong” —
but because they are reflecting the relational field.
When a human stops carrying — when they come back into their body, their timing, their life — animals often soften too.
Not because we fixed them.
But because we stopped asking them to hold what wasn’t theirs.
A different kind of arrival
Learning not to carry what others aren’t ready to carry is not a withdrawal from love.
It’s a maturation of it.
It allows us to meet humans and animals alike in shared timing. Not ahead, not behind.
Over time, something subtle changes:
less tolerance for “almost”
less attraction to potential
more resonance with availability
Not harsher, but clearer.
And perhaps the deepest shift of all:
We stop waiting on others.
We start living where we are.
With warmth and possibility,
Fabienne 🩷
(The Ones Who Arrive Early. On carrying, waiting, and learning to stay with ourselves)
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