I wasn’t going to share this piece at first because it seemed a bit trite or cliché—and some parts felt too personal.  Frankly, I also had most of this week scheduled but here we are.  Later in the week I’m going to share about a project I’m working on with my husband and some of the residual effects of it including a mental breakdown/breakthrough (my fav) and new respect for him. But I need to share something almost selfish now—my husband 100% came through for me in a way I’ve NEVER felt in our entire relationship.  He truly has always been emotionally supportive in the way that he was and is always willing to listen when something is on my mind (which is also always).  As anyone with ADD/ADHD, OCD, and anxiety knows, it’s exhausting to have that level of activity and over-stimulation going on in the brain all the time.  I will fully admit I relied too much on him to carry that weight for me.  I have to admit I felt he owed it to me in some regards.  At first he was willing but over time that connection and understanding have deteriorated—he got tired and detached.  I can understand that now, but I had no control over certain facets of my brain and I spiraled and the anxiety and everything else got worse so we battled all the time between his perception that I just wanted attention and he couldn’t help me and my increasing need for actual help from him even if it was just listening.

So, last week, we were working on the project I’m going to talk about later, and he stopped because he wanted to play darts with me and I couldn’t get into the game—I was playing poorly and all I could see was what still needed to be done.  Even if we couldn’t finish it all then I wanted to at least do what we COULD do.  Then last night we had a similar experience but this time I really lost it because I had already told him the week before that I couldn’t keep sitting with all of these started yet unfinished projects—I can’t let go and play when there are things that need to be done that we CAN do.  We need to stop pushing to tomorrow what can be done today, especially when we say this is what we want because no one else will do it for us.  I explained last night that it was too much stimulation and it was stressing me out.  And for the first time in a long time, instead of saying he didn’t know what to do to help me, he leaned over the pool table and he HEARD what I was saying and he asked what we could do to help alleviate some of that stress.  I swear my soul nearly cried.  In that moment I knew he 100% understood exactly what I was talking about and what I needed.  He put aside anything that he wanted to do in that moment (play darts) to help me work through what I needed to resolve (that I was tired of leaving projects started and unfinished because it gave me anxiety and made me feel worthless because I couldn’t finish anything I started).  And it legitimately worked.  I felt better.  We did a few little things to move forward with the project and we TALKED for a long time and then we went and played darts.

All we need is that presence, that understanding to feel love.  Life can get heavy enough just on its own without factoring in some of the crazy shit we put ourselves through.  Going through it alone just makes it rougher—and when we feel alone together, when we have that partner there but we still feel alone, that is one of the worst feelings in the world.  I spent too long feeling alone together.  There were reasons that happened and I understand that now.  Some valid, some not, some of their own volition and some we created or some we ended up doing to each other.  But the point is, when we come together and address the situation, whatever it is, it suddenly feels less dauting or scary and answers come.  Even if it isn’t a huge breakthrough, just getting it out there helps.  We literally came to a new understanding together last night about where we were at and the people around us and all of that came from playing darts when it didn’t feel right, having a breakdown, putting things together, and starting over again.  All it took was 30 minutes of conversation and another 30 minutes of action and the weight of the world felt lighter than it has in a long time.  Neither of us felt like we needed to lift it on our own anymore either—we had mutually decided to put it down for the time being and pick up more manageable pieces together.  I write this in the deepest state of appreciation for a person I have loved and hated and relished and despised and yearned for and tried to drive crazy who gave it all back to me in equal spades.  We aren’t perfect, we are human.  But now it feels we are human together, on the same trajectory.  It feels whole.

My husband and I were playing darts in our basement—something totally new for me.  I’ve been struggling to let go and have fun—something not new for me.  He has been patient and kind and encouraging, and while we’ve been doing this together, we’ve been talking about our plan to fix up the basement and make it ours, make it a nice hang out space.  We already use it as a play area essentially since we have the dart board, the pool table (he fixed himself) and my grandmother’s old bumper pool table.  I also have all of my workout equipment down there and it is a truly transformative place even if it isn’t pretty.  We’ve known for some time that we had some mice downstairs and we also knew there would be an issue with that because of the way the insulation was installed.  They used Silvercote/encapsulated fiberglass punched into the concrete and they used regular insulation on the raised unfinished 2X4.  They didn’t want to fully frame out the basement so they did it to keep the space warm but we live in the country with lots of little critters so they’re looking for warm too.  And what do they do with such cozy quarters?  They burrow and tunnel and pee and poop in it…so when we had to remove a section unrelated to this project and we saw the home these creatures made, we knew it was unhealthy for us to even have it down there.  We removed it with gusto and are now left with the task of putting it back together.    

We’ve always worked really well together on projects, honestly.  Even if we didn’t see 100% eye to eye, we have always understood the assignment and what we were trying to accomplish and we would always find a compromise.  We have fun together, talking about the idea, planning it, getting the materials, and starting it.  With this project something different, something more clicked in me.  Our conversations over the last few months have changed in context as I’m seeing more and more of the things he said he wanted to do coming through.  The things he ways he’s looking for he actually means.  This project is reinforcing the idea that couples who play together stay together, but it’s also shifting perspective about the past.  See, as we’ve been working together on this, it’s very clear that we are taking what the people who lived here before us built and how they did, for whatever reason they had, and we are reframing it (literally) into something new.  It hit me in an instant that we can do the same thing with our past.  A little over a month ago I found out some things were happening that shouldn’t have been and it triggered every raw emotion from what had happened nearly 20 years before—apparently it did the same for him because he started telling me things he’s never told me about his perception and experience of those incidents.  There were things I didn’t know and didn’t remember and it nearly shook the foundation of what I have built these last 20 years on.  I had felt like a victim in so many aspects—some valid—but I was clinging to that identity as a means to skew things in my favor, using guilt rather than growth to build from.

Suddenly things made sense and fell into place, conversations I wanted to have are happening, and we are telling each other the entire truth.  For the first time, I wasn’t angry about it.  Yes, there were intense feelings and sadness and regret, wishing certain things didn’t have to happen—because they really didn’t have to happen—but this was a peak, a catharsis for both of us.  There was no more hiding or resentment or wondering what happened.  There was freedom.  And he looked at me and he told me in absolute earnest that what happened then happened then and we’ve been together for 23 years and we are going to leave it in the past.  For the first time, I agreed on that.  This wasn’t the usual trying to sweep it under the rug and avoid responsibility type of let it lie—this was a we know what happened and we both see it differently now.  Now we are at a point where we have mutually agreed to move forward.  We have this unbelievably complicated, sometimes sordid but often lovely history and now we have come together to bury it.  We aren’t using the past as an excuse to create expectations on each other or to do things behind each other’s backs to prove a point about power.  We’ve mutually made the choice to take down what was there and start anew.  The foundation was never bad, the construction just got sloppy over time and let the mice in.  That can be fixed.  We just need to expose where they got in and accept responsibility for where we made the hole and then fix it.   

With intention, focus, purpose, and mutual understanding, we can clean it up.  Yes, it requires going through the mess and getting rid of all the crap and that can take some time, but once all the muck is gone, that foundation is exposed and we can create something new.  It doesn’t change what existed, those things are very much still there.  But it changes how we look at the entire thing.  It only takes a mistake or a miscalculation of ¼ inch to throw off an entire build so even if the pour is strong, when we start adding to it, if we stud out incorrectly, we can’t hang the drywall properly.  So the point is this: we can take anything and start again.  And if we don’t have to start again, we can always change how we look at what happened.  Sometimes we just need to let go of what was and create a new vision.  Sometimes that original vision is there but we get rid of the crap that skewed the build.  There were lessons in the past as much as I hate having gone through some of them—there were things to learn about worth, self-worth, boundaries, and how relationships work.  We needed to understand what love really means.  It’s neither complete dependence on each other nor is it two separate entities existing under the same roof.  It’s both.  There was a reason we have stayed together as long as we have—it hasn’t all been bad.  We just needed a different perspective.  Changing how we see the past changes what we can see in the future.  And I see an entirely fresh start, creating what we want together from the ground up with nothing hidden in the walls.  It just took a little perspective and sweat.  It took aiming the darts elsewhere rather than at each other and putting the effort into what we want rather than what we can’t change.  We just build up from here.      

Today I am grateful for new connections.  I had a class this week and met a new colleague.  I got to speak with another employee from a different department, someone I’ve know for some time and I was able to articulate some of the pain points I’ve had with my department.  Within minutes I had contacts and a potential solution to develop my program further.  The same day I had a conversation with a coworker about high school and two comments came out: “C’s get degrees” and “It’s not the grades you make it’s the hands you shake.”  I used to hate that kind of commentary because it felt schmoozy and cheap.  But there is some validity to how we work with people.  There is a real reason to take the time to get to know people.  Just today I had lunch with some colleagues and we connected on a personal level outside of work, and when you have connection, there is a bond there.  It’s a certain level of care that brings out the need to help and support each other. 

Today I am grateful for health.  Humans are meant to age differently than we do.  We aren’t meant to deteriorate and fade away, we are meant to develop strength and function and move throughout our lives.  Witnessing what I did to my body over the years and the work I’ve done over the last 10 months, I am constantly and consistently amazed at what we can bring the body back to. When I started this health journey in earnest, I hadn’t realized where my body was at.  I knew I wanted to improve but I didn’t know how much.  As I’ve gotten certain abilities back, I am in awe of the condition the body is meant for.  I am by no means a paragon of anything physically, but I have made incredible strides and experienced first hand that we can come back from a lot.  Anyone who has witnessed or gone through such a transformation personally understands the feeling of respect for the body that comes—that level of appreciation at all times will keep us grounded in reality and able to better maintain our health.

Today I am grateful for music.  I will share a story later this week about a song I heard, but I need to remark on how grateful I am to experience music on that level—nearly, if not completely, spiritual.  I struggled to find words for many of the things I felt as a kid and there always blessedly happened to be some song I would hear that seemed to capture exactly what I was feeling.  The challenging things I couldn’t say, the hopeful things I was too scared to really say, the words I wanted to say to other people.  Music always filled that gap for me.  I loved how there were these people out there, people I didn’t even know, who seemed to completely identify and understand me.  Like they took my thoughts out of my head and put them in this beautiful order that made it all make sense.  It was relief.  I had an English teacher who said that song is the highest form of expression humans have and that struck a chord with me.  It was never lost on me how music is saved and cherished and it is a language of its own that can be shared forever, marked on paper with its symbols that somehow people see and understand.  I will continue to sing, perhaps not always well, but still with all my soul and that part of me will always recognize the soul when I hear other’s music as well. 

Today I am grateful for raw.  It’s been a while since I let myself get dirty.  Things get cluttered and messy and unclear all the time.  I have the best intentions for getting things done and I fall off the track with distraction or things not going how I anticipated, either taking too long or I’m missing pieces to get it done how I wanted to.  But all of those unfinished things start to accumulate and the stress of it has gotten to me lately.  I felt disconnected, moving too quickly and unsure of what to address first.  Everything seemed so intricately connected that choosing the wrong thing could make it all fall—or doing the wrong thing first could make it all come apart.  In those moments I like to get back to my body—even if I forget about it until then.  We need to listen to the cues our body gives us whether it is to slow down or eat a certain thing or that we need to respond to some other call.  I feel this constant pressure (totally self-inflicted) that tells me I need to do it all and get it all done.  And I think I can do it ALL.  So I end up starting it all and get overwhelmed with everything that’s left unfinished and then I can’t figure out what to do first to finish something so nothing gets done and then I spiral.  And that’s when getting raw helps.  I felt lost yesterday night because of that overwhelm and my husband gently shared his view that we had done a lot that day even though I felt like I hadn’t done enough.  My mind is stressing because I still see everything that needs to be done and I don’t want to wait to do it if we can do it today.  He is looking at the fact that we did something.  And he brought me back to reality with his view.  And we compromised—what we can do needs to get done and we will be content with what we can’t do until the time is right to do that too.  And it helped.

Today I am grateful for giving new experiences.  Yesterday we had to pick up a piece of furniture from a friend and coworker of mine and I knew my husband wasn’t totally thrilled about it.  He didn’t necessarily want another piece of furniture and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to help me with it,  but I knew from the start that this piece would be helpful—so my logic was if we could get it for free let’s make the effort to at least go pick it up.  Regardless, he agreed and I wanted to show my appreciation and it was early so I suggested a new place for us to get some breakfast.  I’d heard of this place from a former employee of mine when she’d brought in some food from there.  It was really good but I hadn’t thought of it in years and then the other day on the way to work I happened to look to my right and saw the sign for it.  I looked up the menu and it wasn’t anything we’d had before so this was the perfect occasion to go there since it was on the way to get the furniture anyway.  We all had so much fun—my son especially with picking out and trying new things.  While it was a new experience for me as well, I can’t tell you how much fun it was to see them doing something new.  Opening a world to people is a gift, even if it’s just a new place to eat. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

We have watched a particular family on YouTube for years.  We started watching when the son was around 6 or 7 and he’s 10 now but we have gone back and watched their videos since he was 18 months.  We’ve seen this family grow and evolve and move to a new home.  They’ve shared their vacations and fun experiences together as well as birthdays and holidays—we’ve seen quite a bit of their lives.  They always share their Christmas and this past holiday, they spent it on Maui.  That simple change of venue brought up some uncomfortable feelings for me, a continued realization of the fact we can’t always cling to tradition and sometimes we need to do things differently.  Sometimes we have to try something new to find out what works.  What works changes over time and we need to have the experience to find out.  But seeing the location change from what we’ve watched over the years was definitely odd and sparked something in me, reminding me how our own traditions have changed over the years. We’ve gone from huge family celebrations with a tight schedule to much smaller groups on different days.  We are missing more people now and it feels a bit more empty.  The love is still there, we just look different.

The truth is things looking different isn’t a bad thing—that’s how life works.  Traditions are mired in what we know, and if we hold onto what we know too tightly, we never learn what can be.  As I watched this family celebrate in Hawaii, so far from where they normally spend their holiday, but the whole family together, I actually remember a few things: The first is that it was really weird to be in Hawaii near Christmas.  I took my husband there when he turned 23 so it was right before the holiday and it was so odd to have all of the Christmas sprit but none of the Christmas feel.  Watching this family on TV, I always loved how they celebrated Christmas at their home because they did it SO big and I wanted to do the same for my son. Seeing a similar version of the celebration that wasn’t quite it felt off but also hopeful.  Even thought it wasn’t the same, they were all still together and it looked like the family had an amazing time—they were with those they love and all the things they normally did were done together even if it did look different.  That made me remember my own Christmases, all the family there and how that family has dwindled now, but like I said, even if we are smaller, the love is still there.       

Even if it’s a bit melancholy, that episode was a clear reminder of the mindset I’ve been on as we navigate our own changes—we need change and we need to embrace it.  Change can open up an entire world of opportunity.  There is beauty in what we’ve done and what we have built, but we grow from it.  We don’t try to make it be the same.  The end of 2024 showed us very clearly that relationships change and we need to evolve with them.  Things do not react well when they are kept caged for too long, and we need to accept ourselves, other people, and our circumstances for what they are.  Then we can do our best to adapt and make them what they are meant to be. We are in 2025 and those kids are so grown up now and things aren’t the same…we aren’t the same.  I used to get really sad about that, and moments like cleaning out those clothes and then seeing kids grow up would send me into a spiral.  I guess I kind of am in a spiral but it feels different—I’m not trying to stop it.  I welcome those changes and I welcome the now.  I am grateful for the now as much as I am grateful for the past.  Things are right on track—we are right where we are meant to be.  What a gift. 

I’ve held so tightly to the past in all aspects, romanticized it and loved every moment of what was that I haven’t sat in what is for very long.  I’ve constantly tried to be somewhere else, either remembering things that happened, the good times or I’ve been on to the next thing, worked to create the next thing. I haven’t sat and just enjoyed where we are, where I’m at, who I am and who I’ve become.  I had a dream last night that my 8 year old was at a party and wasn’t listening to me when I was asking a question about something he wanted.  He was ignoring me entirely and I told him that we were going to leave his own party if he was going to keep being disrespectful and not able to answer a simple question.  He started crying and we ended up walking across a field and he was giving me his typical sass and being sad and he told me that I made a big deal out of nothing.  Then we were in an SUV and he was driving.  He was telling me that what happened was nothing and the disrespect essentially wasn’t as important as I was making it.  He drove off the side of the road because he couldn’t steer and he was going too fast even after I told him to slow down, and we ended up going down a really steep mountain hill and we ended up in a parking lot with me steering and telling him to keep braking.  I share this because there is a part of me that knows I’m trying to stop him from growing too quickly like I can stop time.

The day before I was going through his baby clothes and asking myself how he got so big so fast.  These clothes have sat in my basement for years—my son is 8 now—and I hadn’t looked at them since we packed them from the townhouse.  I’ve struggled to let go of those things because they represent a lot.  They represent the time I became a mother and the short time I had with him, the interrupted time I had with him as I was trying to navigate working and being a mom for the first time.  They also represent what we lost, the hope we had for another baby, when we lost our second child.  I know both kinds of people who would look at the clothes and just let them go and others who, like me, would struggle because we’re not just seeing the clothes.  We’re seeing all that was and all that could have been—literally. There were certain pieces I looked at and I remembered exactly the moment he wore it and what we were doing and my husband asked me how I could remember that and I told him that this is how my mind works—those moments are imprinted on my mind and then I pulled up a picture showing him the moment I was talking about.  I REMEMBER.  My baby isn’t a baby, I know that.  But clinging to the past isn’t going to change him growing up. 

Clinging to the past isn’t going to keep me young, on vacation in California with my parents, safe with them, having so much fun in the pool, going to Universal or the zoo or the animal park.  Clinging to that memory isn’t going to make it happen again.  I need to be where I’m at and accept that things have changed, we’ve grown, and this is very much a new beginning.  I can appreciate what we’ve done, what we did, and I can love what my life was like.  It’s easy to get stuck there when there are issues in the present.  But the only way we can maintain that presence is to be present.  We need to deal with where we are at and enjoy the now and we can make changes toward a better future, but we can never relive the past.  I’m a Potter nerd and I’ve often considered the story surrounding The Resurrection Stone. There have been many stories of similar items, all with the same message, that returning from death won’t work because that person is no longer of this time.  I never understood that.  I always assumed that, if brought back to live again, they would kind of pick up where we left off, wanting to be the same person and do the same things.  I never understood that the break in time caused with death creates a disconnect from what is for these people.  So the point is that we need to be of our time and not lament what is no longer here, wishing we could have it again. 

Letting go isn’t easy because we have an emotional attachment to what was, perhaps an attachment to how we remember it and the feeling it gave us at that time.  There are things we all wish we could do differently but that doesn’t mean we will ever be able to change what happened.  In order to begin again, we have to do something new even if it feels weird. We make new memories and we adapt to what is.  We have to wake up and be happy where we are and adapt to the changes or we let the change wash us away entirely. No matter how intensely we remember, we can’t live in our heads—the real world is out here.  The real world is what we have made it and we need to have an immense appreciation for where we are.  We need to be grateful for what was while alive in what is.  We need to pack up the old clothes, the ones that really mean something, and we need to lovingly donate the rest and allow them to live again and serve purpose in someone else’s life.  That is the gift: the ability to let things live again, not keep them stuck in a  moment.  That is how things go on.  The memory is wonderful but the reality is so much better—be where we are and allow life to grow and flow as it is meant to. Let the rest go.    

“Give the gift two years. Two years of patience and consistency and grace and effort to change your lifestyle to go after the healthier version of you that you are dreaming of.  Give yourself two years because it will be worth it,” Leah Hope Health.  There is an unhealthy obsession, a fixation on how much we can do—and after I wrote those first few sentences, I had to stop to get some things done around the house so I went about my day.  As the day went on, I saw myself overwhelmed with how much we had to do—all of our own choice, of course.  We had begun moving things in the basement so we could clean things out and rearrange it how we want it and I don’t want it to sit in a state of disarray.  I was fully aware we wouldn’t finish it all in one day, that wasn’t the expectation, but I was fully of the mindset that we needed to get done what we could get done—throw away what needed to be thrown away, build the shelving that we could build, move the things for donation so we can get that out of the way.  Right now I’m about creating space and that space is so cluttered.  I don’t live comfortably in chaos and I am certainly not able to sit and play a game in chaos.  I no longer want to put off until tomorrow what can be done today and I want this to be a time of doing activities that yield real results.  So we decided on a project, I don’t want to leave it half finished. Losing momentum right at the start of any venture can be a death sentence to that project because the brain finds opportunities to quit and to follow the path of least resistance so it will find old patterns and do that. 

I am fully aware of those moments when we have to stop—I am not talking about pushing through the point where the body and mind truly do need to stop, but I am talking about those times when we THINK we need to quit.  There is a difference between overwhelm in the moment and the actual NEED to stop.  So we have to give ourselves time.  We have to pace ourselves.  We have to look at what the overall goal is and ask if what we are doing in that moment serves.  There are times the answer is going to be, “You need to sit for an hour.”  There are times the answer is going to be, “You’re done for today.”  But the most likely truth is that we can keep going.  It’s not pushing through, it’s rearranging mindset.  When we talk about playing the long game, pacing is even more important.  If we jump right off the bat and try to do it all at once, we are very likely to get overwhelmed and want to stop.  It’s not that we have to stop, but we will feel like we need to.  But with a long term goal or project, it is important to take the time needed, especially if it’s a bigger project.  It will take a hell of a lot longer to start and stop for 6 months than it does to do 20 dedicated minutes a day.  The long term is sustainable that way.  Change takes a lot of work and so many of us are looking for the quick fix, the easy answer, the immediate result  because we want to move on to the next thing.  Some projects take a while but they take even longer if we stop. 

There’s a saying I’ve shared before that we overestimate what can be done in a day but we underestimate what can be done in a year.  I want to add that we can’t sabotage what can be done in a year by not starting today—or by not doing what can be done today.  Don’t let fear stop us, don’t let the fact that everything isn’t perfectly in place stop us from even starting.  Don’t let the fact that we may need to take a break part way through be a permanent stop.  Learn to do what can be done in the moment and then do whatever else needs to be done next.  It doesn’t have to be done all at once, it just needs to get done. So we need to be patient with ourselves and we need to appreciate the work and time that real change takes.  It’s about consistency more than anything else.  Don’t fall in the trap of thinking if we can’t do it all in one day then we shouldn’t do anything.  If we can’t accomplish the thing then we need to ask ourselves what we can do that will at least get us in the right direction, what can we do that supports the thing.  Transition and change mean doing different things and often it’s more important to train the brain in little bits each day, to do things each day, that bring us closer to the goal rather than it is to finish the goal in its entirety in one moment.  So whether it is cleaning and organizing, shifting careers, changing mindset, changing our habits, becoming healthier, any of it.  Learn to let go of the old and be patient with the new—after all we are learning and that does take time.  But don’t give up.  Find the actions we can take every day, no matter how small, and take them.  Do what needs to be done every day even if it’s not everything, and we will get there.   

“It is in the smallest boxes we find the most precious things,” Atouche…  I liked this little reminder that it isn’t always the big things in life that bring us the most joy.  It isn’t even the big things that make us who we are at times.  It’s the culmination, the combination of all the little pieces that make us who we are and make our lives so special.  The way we smile, the way someone smiles at us, the sound of a loved one’s voice at the end of a rough day, saying hello my beautiful wife.  The appreciation of a good meal—whether we make it or have it prepared for us.  The thrill of finding that perfect book, shirt, piece of art, a vision coming together.  The unrelenting joy of being together with someone you hadn’t seen for a really long time.  Celebrating anything because the more joy we have in our lives the more joy we bring.  Seeing a sign from source that we are on the right track.  When we finally accomplish a goal and get that win or we are just able to take time to play the game.  When we are able to slow down and take a walk in nature—or just get out a bit.  A vacation, even if it’s just time away from work where we can come back to ourselves for a little bit.        

For me, it’s the way the cats follow me all day when I’m home or when I get home from work they find me, they curl up with me while I work and they sleep with me at night.  The way my son asks me to cover him up at night because he likes the way I do it—and then how he asks me if we can stay home and cuddle rather than go to school and work in the morning.  The way I understand that those little moments create the magic I felt as a kid, the moments I thought were so special and took so much time, I see are mere seconds and in the simplest of actions like tucking him in at night or reading with him or listening to him talk about the things he loves.  The presence, the ministry of presence that demonstrates and solidifies love in our minds like when my husband puts his hand on my back at night.  Sitting in my special chair or in my bed or on my side of the couch and reading a book.  Watching a movie cuddled up under the giant 10×10 blanket with the whole family.  Slow weekend mornings that feel perfectly timed.  Slowing down in general.  Finding the right pace in my writing.  Getting in the groove with a creative project.  Spending holidays with the family—and it’s about time, not anything else.  Moving my body—and a massage!! Seeing the snow start to fall or seeing the first signs of spring, or the heat of summer, and the calming of fall.  The ability to simply be and let things be is the greatest thing—to be alive. 

None of these are particularly big things but they are monumental in forming the core of life. I know so many times we feel the day to day is boring or that we are somehow missing out on something.  There are so many options in this life it can be overwhelming and we tend to live in a go big or go home, do-it-all-yourself, never-stop-moving society.  And the truth is there are endless possibilities in this world and it is so freaking cool that we get to decide what to do with our lives.  We can’t get overwhelmed in the thrill of it that we paralyze ourselves with indecision just as much as we can’t be so driven that we miss out on the present moment.  We can’t miss the point—that while we are creating something we love, we are also living with those we love.  This is the only time we have and at the end of the day we will likely regret more of what we didn’t do than what we did do with the exception of overdoing.  It really is the little things that matter and add up to the big things, the joy of life.    

“Not everything that comes out of crisis is bad.  Sometimes traumas are the reason you know how to help,” unknown.  I can’t say I enjoy strife or struggle or even the minor inconveniences of every day with things I feel should just work.  It’s a giant pain in the ass when we think we have all of our bases covered and it all goes left.  But we have to keep perspective and understand that not everything is as bad as it seems and not all inconveniences are the crisis we think they are.  When things got tough, I can’t say I didn’t learn something.  Sometimes the thing I thought was so terrible turned out to be an inconvenience that showed me a different way to get where I wanted to be.  There were events in my life I thought would break me—and some nearly did— that I still stood up from even if it took me a long time to recover.  There were some I know I became a different person, not for the better because I felt weaker after and I still question what the point was.  But then there were moments I know people expected me to stay face down in the dirt and I stood up, I came back, and I kept going.  In those moments, I knew that there was a lesson from whatever struggle I’d just been through.    

We all have a very different definition of trauma at times.  Something that breaks one bounces off of another.  There are no-brainer cases we all agree fall under suffering and loss—the struggle to find food, not having clothes or shelter, dealing with any kind of abuse, critical illness.  But the truth is, it also isn’t up to us what counts as trauma in someone else’s life—it’s all a very relative experience and I think we all have varying degrees of struggle in our lives so we can help each other learn. No, first world problems like not having the color nail polish we want isn’t a crisis, but it can still show us how to gracefully deal with disappointment.  Sometimes we are the example for other people.  Whether that is an example of strength or what not to do depends on the day, but our experiences are definitely lessons for others as well as ourselves.  Inspiration or cautionary tale, well, that also depends on the viewer.  Life is pretty subjective. Those lessons are also a matter of interpretation at times.  It’s up to us what we do with them—do we bend or do we break?  What modifications do we make? Often the point is just to learn that we can get up again, that we are stronger than we thought and can endure more than we believed.     

Humans do this weird thing where we try to one up each other with what’s wrong in our lives. We shouldn’t compete over trauma—we all know those people always trying to prove they have it worse, like it’s some badge of honor to see how much is wrong with them.  We also like to share other people’s struggles.  I have a friend who will tell me what went wrong with her all week as well as what went wrong with all of her friends.  Look, I don’t want anyone to suffer—I really don’t, I think there are plenty of other ways to learn lessons, thank you—but I also don’t think everything we deal with in a week is a crisis.  I also don’t need to invest myself in everyone else’s problems, I don’t need to go looking for issues and I certainly don’t want to create them.  For those I CAN help, I’m all in, 100%, call me and I’m there.  Hearing how you’ve chosen to take the same failed chance and it failed again, or how you’re not feeling well and still smoke, or how you want a certain thing but still repeat the pattern, or how you immerse yourself in other people’s troubles, well that’s a you thing.  Frankly, no one got anywhere actively looking to go further into the shit without trying to find a solution.  That’s the other side of this too—how much of our trauma did we cause ourselves? And is it trauma or drama? If we’re honest, it’s probably 80% of it is drama.

I get tired and annoyed looking at everything from a negative lens because not every little thing a crisis.  Convenience has made us soft and the things we find traumatic really aren’t that big of a deal.  I used drama and trauma as a weapon, thinking the only way I could get attention or get what I need (a day off, my husband to give me a backrub, anything really) was to have something wrong, to create an emergency or a problem (victim).  I didn’t understand that we are allowed to want and to receive what we want, we don’t need to justify why we deserve it.  Our job isn’t to convince the world we earned that reward by going through struggles.  Not all struggle is nobility, sometimes it’s our own stupidity.  But the truth is sometimes we have to go through something really uncomfortable, really painful, really extreme to get the point—which is that we are strong enough to handle what comes our way.  The experience teaches us so we can teach others and we pass down the knowledge.  We grow and expand the more we learn, and the more we learn, the more we can help others.

Courage looks like so many different things.  I never really considered myself courageous—I’ve often wanted to find a way to take my chances and do the things that called to me, that excited me, and it was only quite recently that I really started to fully explore the complete expression of who I am.  I’ve peeled layers of it for years and I feel I’ve gotten more out there recently than I have in all the previous years.  I was recently told I was courageous for sharing my work, these words, and for going further with my publication.  While it may not be a traditional route, it is still a huge leap, and it felt really nice to have that commended.  I spent too much time in my fiery nature, sitting on the sidelines knowing what I was capable of but allowing myself to drown in fear, putting out my light before I even got a chance to fully ignite it.  I looked for someone to carry my spark rather than tend it on my own, rather than let it grown and expand. I always knew my power was great, I always knew that I had good ideas, that my words carried weight.  I’ve always been incredibly grateful, grateful beyond words in fact, for the gifts I have.  I wasn’t always sure how to handle them, I wasn’t always sure how to express them, or how to pay them back so to speak.  For a long time I didn’t feel I was worthy of the expression of what was rightly and innately mine.  I thought my purpose was to fan the flame for others and become their source of hope, their light, I thought I was supposed to nurture their dreams and make sure they succeeded so that one day someone would do the same for me. 

I looked up to people who had no fear, no doubt, no regret about being who they were.  I saw how they simply said what was on their mind and didn’t worry about someone not liking them or being misunderstood.  When it came to school and facts, I had NO problem opening my mouth, but as I got older and lost some conviction for a while, it became more difficult to feel confidence in what I knew.  I also admired the people who shamelessly went for the things they wanted, everything from trying out for a sport that they hadn’t done before, talking to a teacher in a certain way, leading projects, for those who seemed to shape their reality into what they want.  I admire those who can take nothing and put it into something, those unafraid to break the rules and not follow the directions—I’ve always been terrified to lean on my own instincts.  That, however, is changing, and I’ve taken more leaps forward this past year than I have in nearly my entire life.  From self-care to self-expression, I understand what it feels like to not hide and to simply stand in what we believe.  I admire those who shuck the normal way of doing things, those driven by passion that keeps them going and they feel there is no need to stop, those who operate on their own schedule and according to their own instincts.  It’s an amazing sense of freedom, authenticity, and autonomy.

I want to share my words, let people hear where I’m at and where I’ve been and I want to tell the point of my story, I want to control that narrative rather than let people define me and that means being vulnerable and exposed in some arenas.  There is no reason to wait for someone else to tell me what my life is about when I’m here and can explain it myself.  My voice is worthy.  It’s so weird to have such conviction about my story but have the fear to actually act on it.  I told my sister in more detail about my work and she actually said that she found out today that her sister has more courage than she does.  I was completely taken aback because I have always looked at my sister as one of the bravest people around.  She left home and never came back because she was following her dreams and her instincts.  I know it wasn’t always easy for her but she did it.  She moved 800 miles away because she felt a pull to something that we didn’t understand and she has sustained herself on her own in one of the most emotionally harsh environments out there.  So to hear her tell me that I had bravery in that context made me understand that we all look at each other’s strengths differently.  There is no hierarchy between us, we are sisters.  We are fully grown adults each successful in our own right, each dealing with our own trials and tribulations as well.  But we are on our own paths and on those paths success does look different and there is space for that in both of our lives.

All we have is now.  I don’t want to wait until I’m gone for my message to get out there, with the point of it skewed by millions of experiences and interpretations.  If that is the goal then I can’t hide behind a rock waiting for people to find me.  I need to step up and out and share.  Vulnerability is terrifying, but we have to be vulnerable if we want to get the idea out there.  At one point, nearly all we have was thought of as crazy, everything from electricity to permanent houses to cars.  Hell, it was thought of as crazy that we weren’t the center of the universe.  That didn’t stop those who were curious from literally putting their lives on the line to share those ideas.  Damn the consequences, they moved forward with sharing what they believed.  Doing something new is scary but the more we do the scary thing, the easier it becomes.  The more we stand up and share those pieces, the more comfortable we become.  In order to be that version of ourselves we have to let go of the version that didn’t think we could be that person.  We have to let go of the part of ourselves that holds us back from completely putting ourselves out there.  That is true courage: going after what we want even if it means going against the grain.  I learned a long time ago that even if we don’t feel strong, we are often that backbone for someone else.  If we can do that, if we can support others through whatever they are going through and offer encouragement, then we can do the same for ourselves.  It’s a matter of perspective and sometimes we have to learn to see ourselves through someone else’s eyes.

Today I am grateful for authenticity.  In my life I’ve vacillated between full, brazen oversharing and wearing a mask that conceals nearly every part of me.  I’ve been anything and everything for everyone and I’ve also stood my ground.  I think that makes me pretty human but it also makes me pretty hypocritical—I guess hypocrisy is part of humanity too.  I’ve always been able to see middle ground, both sides of nearly any argument and get to the point of what the parties involved were trying to accomplish and what they were saying as well as where one or both were misunderstanding each other.  I prided myself on being a pretty straightforward person as far as telling others when they were misunderstanding something and getting them on the right track.  But I struggled to find that level of acceptance for myself and that, in turn, made me not accepted by others.  I was a chameleon, adapting and fitting in to any group, because I could understand and relate to people—but they didn’t relate to me, and I never understood that just because I understood someone it didn’t mean that I belonged or that they fully understood me.  People didn’t always read other people like I did.  I used to think I was bad at picking up on social queues but the truth is I was so overly sensitive and in tune to others that I was aware of their shifts before they were and it made them uncomfortable, and because I could fit in everywhere, no one knew where I really belonged—and I didn’t either.  These first 11/12 days of the year have reminded me how things feel when we are completely aligned and walking in our authentic self.  Not trying to fit in anywhere, just being.  That gets us further than trying to manipulate or fold ourselves into someone else’s definition of who we are.  It also gives us complete control over our direction—and it feels good.   

Today I am grateful for defining priorities.  Oh, my friends, anxiety and ADD are a bitch as I have so often shared/lamented/exalted.  I love the creative energy I have and the surges I get where ideas pour out of me, and when I’m in that zone, time doesn’t exist and I feel like I am on a high.  It truly is a gift.  ADD, however, makes it hard to capture the moment and follow through on a lot of those ideas and anxiety meets ADD when we are trying to accomplish all of these tasks that our wonderful, tuned in, antennae have picked up for us.  I started writing down the actual break down of some of my goals—steps, dates, actual assignments/projects, etc.—and it is something to see the month fold out before you.  This is probably not a revelation to many of you but I was never a person who defined my time and when I did I was vague with it or I let myself slip and not follow through if something else came up.  I realized over 2024 that I can accomplish a lot—I did a ton of new things and I made a lot of progress in my goal areas but I also saw how much further I had to go.  And for the first time I didn’t panic.  I saw that I could get there as long as I refined a few approaches, got clear on who I was and what the goal was, and then put it to paper so I would remember and commit to what needed to be done.  I’ve been grateful for priority before, but that was priority to a short term thing—this is a bigger picture, a vision coming true. 

Today I am grateful for collaboration.  Yesterday unexpectedly saw my husband and I starting a remodel on the basement.  We’d been talking about rearranging things for a few weeks but we have some larger items that slightly limit what we do—and the previous owners of our home had the weirdest insulation all over the walls (we have a look-out basement) that was, unfortunately, obliterated by mice over the years so we had been talking about taking it down as well.  And, of course, there were things we store in the basement that needed to be organized-again.  Life is funny that way, as soon as you have something put together more stuff seems to seep in and create more of a mess.  Regardless, we needed some racking for a few of the things we still need to store and I had to reorganize some things that I had to phase out.  We had an amazing time planning out the new layout and what we wanted to do, going through all the options we’d been thinking of, and, honestly, it was really nice to start going through stuff to start organizing again.  There were boxes of things I’d been convincing myself I wasn’t ready to get rid of—and truth be told there were things I’m not ready to get rid of—but it was beautiful to go through it and reminisce, and not nearly as painful as I’d been thinking.  Now we have a horribly messy basement but an awesome plan to make it what we want, and we have reestablished our teamwork and connection.      

Today I am grateful for blessings.  The meaning of that word falls into religious connotation, stating “God’s favor or protection; a prayer asking for God’s favor or protection; a favor bestowed by God, thereby bringing happiness.”  I look at blessing as a gift from higher power, spirit, as well as others—and sometimes others are the blessing.  As I sort through the history of my life in order to continually shift on the right track, I see everything I’ve held onto.  I see all I have been gifted and granted and put to good use in this world to open up additional options.  I have so much gratitude, not just for the things we have, but for the opportunities this life has afforded us, me.  I am grateful to have the choices I do, to be able to create, to receive and give, to live without strain for the daily necessities, and now, I am incredibly grateful to shape a future with those blessings.  I am grateful to be able to put all of my words and work into context and practice and good use for my family and those around me.  I am grateful to turn the blessings I have into more blessings.   

Today I am grateful for desire.  Desire is a delicious word, suggesting something slightly out of control but fully carnal, the need for something we want we can’t explain.  I don’t care if this is on the most basic physical level or in how we live our daily lives, desire burns and provides energy and it consumes us at points.  The fun thing about the burn of desire is it never really burns us.  It can take over at times but it is in the best possible way.  Whether in love or in design, desire fuels creation and passion.  Desire is passion to the next level.  It’s a wanting that pushes us forward and when we get the results we want, it is the most satisfying feeling.  Sometimes we don’t know the next steps to take but we look to the thing that feels right on the path toward a larger goal, and we let that passion take us to where we need to be.  Desire at its peak is one of the most exciting things in the world.  We are lucky to have such encouragement and motivation toward things and to feel the pull to it.  I’m not suggesting we blindly follow every whim we have, but I am talking about enjoying it whole-heartedly.  Let us be consumed by the things that give us joy so we can produce more, so we can feel more, so we can share more.  Desire is fuel and creation is the work behind it and the results are completely up to us and how we put that desire to good use.  Desire has brought me many things in my life and I stifled it for too long, so now as I learn to work with it and go with the flow of it, to admit what it is that I want, I thoroughly enjoy seeing the results of where it takes me—and I like the way it feels.         

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead