No Easy Way Out by Jon Mullins

There was no dramatic escape in that season of my life—no clean break, no moment where everything suddenly felt safe or clear. No Easy Way Out met me right there, in the middle of the staying, the enduring, the trying to survive what I couldn’t yet name.

This song feels like the quiet truth so many of us live through: when leaving isn’t simple, when loving costs pieces of yourself, and when strength looks less like bravery and more like getting through the next hour. It mirrors the slow unraveling I experienced as a woman and a mother—when I kept choosing stability over myself, believing that endurance was the same as love. Hearing this song now, I don’t hear weakness. I hear the sound of someone learning that choosing yourself is still a choice, even when there’s no easy way out.