Trees have thin rings from the slow years. They’re still part of the trunk.

A slow year does not get deleted from the record. It sits there as a narrow line, holding the same weight as the wide ones, doing the same structural job. Nothing about a period of small growth makes it less a part of what you are standing on now.

You will be tempted to mentally subtract the years where little happened, as though they were time off. Try counting them instead. Ask what those stretches required of you and what quietly carried over. A life measured only by the productive years is a thin story, and it leaves out most of the trunk.