Nothing That Isn’t for Anything

If you had an extra hour every day, how would you spend it?

I think the one thing almost all adults have in common is the feeling that there is never enough time to get everything done that you hoped to. The to-do lists get longer, and the hours get shorter. You wake up, work, and then spend your free time getting ready to go to work again. Somewhere inside, you think, you feel, you know that this isn’t the way it should be, but you look around and everyone is living life like you, and they say nothing at all.

I feel it too, and for years I’ve had the sneaking feeling that we’re all living life backwards. We’ve been taught that our time is owed. Every hour is either one borrowed, one to be paid back, or one bought and paid for either with love or currency. It’s as if your life is already spent, and the feeling only grows more intense and more insistent as you get older. I have less and less to give, but more and more is asked all the time.

When I think about having an extra hour, my first instinct is to spend it on all the work that keeps piling up. I was raised to thrive in a capitalist and individualist society, after all. Of course, most studies show that if you really want to increase happiness, work is the last area of life that you should give anymore time to, let alone an extra miracle hour.

I might consider giving more time to maintaining my personal relationships. I call my friends more. I could never see my family enough. My wife certainly deserves a little more of my day, too. An extra day with any of them would definitely be well spent. The thing is, if I’m being honest, I could do that now if I could manage to both stay off of social media and get out of the expectation that I should always be working.

An extra hour can already be found, but what about an extra hour that was given? What if my day was suddenly 25 hours long instead of 24? What would I do with that time?

It’s hard to explain what I would do because I don’t want an extra hour to do something. I want an extra hour to do nothing. I want one hour every day to do a certain kind of nothing. You know the kind I mean. You remember it—the kind of nothing we all used to do when we were kids.

Do you remember the days that you spent playing with friends, or even by yourself? You were so busy running, jumping, climbing, exploring, and making up worlds and rules, and you would come home and your parents might ask, “What did you do today?” Almost every time, kids will shrug and give the same reply, “Nothing.” Of course, it was something. The time passed, and you played, but it happened so naturally that you hardly paid attention to it. I want to do that kind of nothing again.

Think of it: When was the last time you climbed a tree? When was the last time you made something using your hands? When was the last time you played a game that you made up the rules for? When was the last time you went on a hero’s journey before the streetlights came on? When was the last time you lost time? Could you imagine doing it again? What would that look like for you now?

Just like when we were kids, I wouldn’t spend it doing the same thing every day. The only common thread is that for that one extra hour each day, I would completely disconnect. No phone, no laptop, no TV. I could walk somewhere, I could write a poem or make a new collage, or I could just lay somewhere in the sun. It wouldn’t matter whether I was busy or if I stared at a wall. The point is that for a full 60 minutes a day, I would hear only my own thoughts and direct my own actions.

Sadly, that kind of nothing doesn’t come easily or naturally anymore. I don’t know whether it’s something that is discouraged in us or something we lose by simply aging, but playing, imagining, and making things feel hard to do now. My world has closed, and my thinking has become rigid. I feel silly or stupid trying to play now. I feel like I’m wasting something or losing something when I give myself over to that kind of nothing.

I suppose when you are an adult, play takes practice; it takes discipline. Play feels like work when you’ve grown out of it for so long. You have to fight the instinct to take yourself too seriously or to judge yourself too harshly.

You have to remember that the nothing you do isn’t for anything or anyone. It’s not to learn something, although you might. It’s not to make money, though some people do. The purpose of doing nothing is to just be. It’s like following yourself on a journey. You don’t know where you will end up, but you follow yourself in the sun, up a tree, through make-believe worlds, and back to yourself. I think a journey like that would be a miracle hour well spent.

🌶️

Isn’t It a Miracle?

Isn’t it a miracle that we’ve ended up as ourselves?

My youngest sister is always trying so hard to become someone. I have tried, but I still haven’t found the right way to explain to her that no one ever really becomes a final someone. You never stop becoming. I want her to know that who you are is not a final, permanent product but an ever-growing, changing, transient thing.

I try to think back to when I was her age, fifteen years ago—a lifetime. I see me as I was then, and I can see me in her as she is now. I remember that sense of anxious wondering. I wanted to find my place in the world. I wanted to be who I was already.

What I try to tell her all the time is that by spending so much time chasing who you will become, you lose precious time being who you are. I try to tell her that she can’t be who she will become now. She can only be who she is now, and wait. That is how it will always be.

Of course, I have a lifetime of hard lessons to lean on. She can’t truly understand what I mean because the truth hasn’t happened to her yet. It takes aging and the ability to see that in every moment who you think you are is really only a thin slice of a long gradient of who you are.

Identity, I have come to see, is not a thing that can be described at any one time, but something that exists over time, perhaps even longer than a lifetime. (Perhaps, and this may be the subject of another post all together, even bigger than one person!) So much of who you are is, after all, determined by events that occur before you are born and much of who you are will live on even after you die.

Maybe that isn’t what is so hard to grasp. Maybe the hard pill to swallow is the weight of all the choices you didn’t make. All that hindsight builds up and begins to cloud our view of time, of the self, of the choices that were actually available. We carry the all the versions of ourselves we could have been and slowly, slowly come to hate the person we have become in comparison.

It’s not really a fair comparison to make. The present self can never measure up because, of course, the imagined self is always perfect. The truth is that imagined self could never have existed because nothing in nature can be perfect. The truth is, if you must make comparison, there is an equal and opposite lesser self you have risen above. The truth is, it is a miracle that each of us is anything, anyone, at all.

I don’t mean this in a purely woo-woo or spiritual way. But it’s hard not to get a bit metaphysical when you consider the sheer chances that each of us should be born, should choose one course or another, should meet and love and hate the people that we do, and that we should have self-knowledge enough to wonder about who we are, who we could have been, and that we should have further choices to become more ourselves or someone else entirely.

One thing I try to do when I find myself dwelling too harshly on what I should have done or who I should have become, is try to embody that version of myself again without the knowledge I have now and ask, my circumstances, feelings, and available choices then. Whenever I do this, I find that I did make the best choice that I could then.

I truly believe each of us is always doing our best at every moment. I think we are the best versions of ourselves we can be and a lot of what determines who we become in the next moment, the next year, the next job, relationship, place or time we end up in comes down to the tools we have and the choices available.

Another hard pill to swallow is, not all options are available at all times. There are limits of time, of money, of character, of desire. It is not possible for me to become President of the United States from here because I don’t know how; I don’t have the money or time; I don’t have the right temperament, and I certainly don’t have the desire.

What we most often mourn when we mourn who we could have been was a lack of tools, a lack of knowledge, and a lack of love. Given how little of that is available to each of us, especially in a time when we are so separated by the vast internet and in a culture that pushes stanch individualism, it truly is a miracle that we all become who we are.

I marvel at the myriad of ways a human being can come together. It’s a miracle that we are all born, that we crawl and claw our way out of childhood through a harsh human world embedded in an indifferent universe and still we find so much strength, kindness, wisdom, humor, and happiness to share.

No, you might not be the richest person or the smartest. You might, like me, make mistakes every day. You might fail yourself and fail the people you love. You probably get it wrong most days and some days you are too tired to try again. You may be afraid, you may be angry, you may be lonely and you may even be tired of this ruined life, but through all that you, like me, are beautiful and your life, like mine, is precious.

All this is simply to say, you don’t have to be anything more than what you are from moment to moment. There is no you to become. There is simply a life to live. Being one thing or another is such a small thing in comparison to the experience of becoming. Being one thing or another is only another way to settle. It’s a fraction of a life.

I Deserve to Dream

How do you dream big?

When I was growing up, I never heard the adults around me speaking in future tense. Everyone around me seemed too busy coping with their past or simply surviving the present. My parents in particular, spent almost all their waking hours working to keep food on the table, a roof over our heads, and clothes on our backs. When they weren’t doing that, they slept, they fought, they cried, they yelled, and sometimes worse.

My whole childhood felt like running from one crisis right into the next. There was never any time to think about the future. There was nothing to do but deal with what was in front of you.

Even as early as elementary school, I lost the ability to imagine who I could be someday. I remember being sent home with assignments asking us to dream up who we wanted to be when we grew up. I can’t even remember what I must have written down. Perhaps I drew an astronaut; I was always interested in space. Maybe I drew a veterinarian. I did love animals. Whatever I drew, it was a lie. I didn’t dream of being anything.

Even as a teenager, I could not see past the very immediate. Many of the crises I had lived through by then had rooted in me and become internal. I spent years just trying to find my footing in life, trying to live. I couldn’t see past turning 18 years old. After I turned 18, I couldn’t see past 21. After 21, I found some stability, but couldn’t move my mind further than life up to 25. Every year since has felt like a surprise, a gift, a few of them a curse.

It isn’t that I thought I wouldn’t be around all that time, although that was certainly within the realm of possibility, I simply never thought I would be one thing or another. For me there was, and still is, a great sense of indifference, a gaping hole of simply nothing, where my image of the future should be. I might be something, or something else, or nothing at all, but it just won’t be up to me. Dreaming is a waste of time.

The future feels like something that will happen to me, not something I can shape. Sure, I can make small choices—what to eat for lunch, what to say, whether to write, when to go to bed—but big things—the job I will have, what kind of home I can afford, how long I will live, whether I am loved or note—just don’t feel like they are up to me. It’s chance, or luck if you prefer that. I don’t dream, I simply do.

I have managed to stumble into a decent life. I have a wonderful wife, a nice home, good friends, a fulfilling job, and many small comforts, but I don’t feel like I’ve earned any of it. The best I have been able to do is create the best present possible at all times. Each moment stands alone for me and I make the best I can of it.

And that has worked for me, so far, but lately, I have begun to feel a shift in my thinking. I’ve started to wonder if this foreshortened way of seeing time hasn’t been a truth I know, but a way of simply surviving I should have let go of a long time ago. My perceptions are skewed. There’s more to life than now, or there should be…there could be.

Going through life on autopilot is a perfectly fine way to live if you want, but it’s not so easy to do when it’s not just your life you’re living, but I share my life. Being married means sharing certain passions, goals, and desires. You dream alone and then you dream together. Except, I have never been very good at dreaming.

To dream, you have to feel safe. I spent some of the most important years of my development feeling very unsafe. That was all a very long time ago, but trauma can be so ingrained that it becomes reality. It is the lens you view everything through and then suddenly even the lens is invisible.

We often forget that what happens inside our minds is unique to each of us, and that there are a nearly infinite number of ways to be. We can have the wrong idea. We can limit ourselves without even knowing it. Most importantly, we can change. What you were taught—about who you are, about what you deserve, about the way the world works—when you were growing up isn’t the one and only truth. For many of us, what we were taught were lies we have to work hard to disbelieve.

To dream, you have to be able to let go of the fear of failing, of hurting, of dying, and you have to believe you can make things happen and not that things can only ever happen to you. To dream, you have to love yourself now. To dream, you have to believe you deserve more than what the world gives you. To dream, you have to know you will be here in a year, in five years, in ten. You have to close your eyes and see yourself there and you have to love that version of you, too.

It’s taken my whole life until now to know I have not just agency, but responsibility to myself and the people I love to reach higher. I can do more than just be a good wife, daughter, sister, friend, human being. I can work toward something, earn something, and be something in the world, too. I can think of my future self and wonder at what she wants, what her life could look like, and I can plan how to get there.

🌶️

Time Blind

Are you saving time or wasting it?

No matter how early I wake up, I’m always late for work.

I’ve tried getting ready the night before, but I still find myself confused about the next steps. I’ve tried waking up earlier, but it seems the more time I have the later I am. I’ve tried lists, timers, and alarms and still every morning I’m rushing, feeling like a failure again.

When I look back, I can’t always pinpoint when I went wrong, but typically it’s a simple distraction. I was watering the plants instead of making my lunch. I decided to clean out my bag with only 5 minutes left to get ready. I stopped to listen to a news story. I was playing with the dog. More often than not, I simply lost track of time and moved too slowly.

My problems with time don’t end there. I’m late to almost everything. I can’t finish tasks on time, or often at all. I lose a lot of time finding lost items or trying to remember what I was doing, or how I ended up doing what I find myself doing instead. It’s frustrating. It’s exhausting. It’s a waste of time.

People always say, “Just don’t get distracted”, but they don’t understand that I don’t know that I am distracted in the moment. In the moment, I am doing exactly what I need to be doing. Worse, in the moment, I often believe I’m saving time rather than wasting it. I’m doing everything all at once! I’m moving fast! I’m being productive and efficient!

I began to suspect I had ADHD a couple of years ago after making a joke about having it in front of a coworker and she replied, “Well, duh.”. I asked all my friends and family if they thought I might have ADHD and all of them said the same thing, “duh”. At 36 years old, I was the last to know.

To be clear, I don’t have an official diagnosis. The symptoms of anxiety, chronic fatigue, and CPTSD overlap and all make sense for me, but my mother has it and so does at least one of my brothers, so the chances are high. I haven’t pursued treatment because even though it’s often frustrating, exhausting, and upsetting, it comes with several super powers:

  1. I can switch gears quickly. Most of the time this happens against my will, but it means a bad day doesn’t get me down for long. It means I can find motivation easily. It means I don’t get stuck.
  2. I can do many things at once. I can talk to someone and clean the kitchen. I can write a blog post and listen to someone’s story. I can think about one problem while working through a solution to another.
  3. I can think fast. I can move from thoughts to conclusions, problems to actions, before most people have got their bearings. I can even hold two thoughts—or even two emotions—at the same time with ease.
  4. I can focus in chaos. Because my mind creates its own chaos, I can thrive in environments where a lot is happening. I can see paths out when other people feel overwhelmed.

I like myself just the way I am, but this problem with time is the hardest to overcome. I can’t work out a coping mechanism or life hack my way around it.

Recently, hoping to find a solution to my problem, I came across several articles on “time blindenss“. Each gave the same advice: exercise, get out in the sun, drink coffee, and track your time. It seems I’m already doing all that I can. This may be the best I or anyone else can expect of me. It may be the world that needs to change a little to meet me where I am.

In a capitalistic country with a culture of fervent productivity, where every job requires time management skills and timeliness is nearly a moral issue, it can be hard for people like me who have tried, and tried, and tried but can’t seem to do what comes easy for everyone else.

My days are filled with little failures and small moments of shame. Even the people that love me most find themselves some days bewildered and other days angry because it appears I won’t try harder. I don’t care enough. I am broken in some fundamental way.

What I wish the world understood is that the same way you can be sight impaired, or hearing impaired, you can be time impaired. It is a sensory issue. There are people who simply cannot feel time as it passes or make informed estimates about the time that is needed. It is a sensory problem and no amount of planners, timers, or alarms will work because when time slips, so does your attention. You get lost in it—with it—and maybe that isn’t always a bad thing.

On days when I have nothing to do and no expectations to meet, when my time belongs to me and I can let it slip or stand, I feel free. On days like that, I like the way that time can stretch or narrow depending on how I feel. When I’m happy and hyper-focused, time is never ending. When I’m in love, time stands still. When I’m excited, time speeds up with me. Time bends to me, time becomes part of me. I wish I had more days like that.

Instead, most days are negatively impacted by the way time moves for me, but many of those negative effects stem from the structure of workplaces and deadlines. Without those structures, I’d be free to work in a way that felt right to me. Without those structures, we’d all feel more confident in our abilities rather than worrying about our shortcomings. We could all have more days when time felt like something we moved through—or that moved through us—rather than something we measured each other against.

🌶️

Catching Up

“if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?”

If I called you right now to catch up, it might surprise you to hear from me after such a long time away. I would say the things that everyone says. I would say I was sorry I hadn’t reached out. I would say it wasn’t you, but the work hours that have grown longer and the hours leftover that get shorter and shorter all the time.

If I called you right now to catch up, I would say I have been tired, that I have been stressed, and that I have piled too much on my plate. I would tell you that between my work, my family, my wife, and my home, there isn’t enough of me to go around. There isn’t enough of me left for me, and I am starting to feel it. I would say that through all of it though, I have missed you, and I would mean it though I would feel powerless to change it.

If I called you right now to catch up, I would want to tell you about all the good things too. I would tell you that I have been working out and that, for the first time in my life, the way I look on the outside is starting to match the way I feel on the inside. I would tell you that if you could see me, you might notice that it’s not just the shape of my body that has changed, but the way I carry myself, too. I feel more confident. I’m surer of myself. It’s an amazing feeling.

If I called you right now to catch up, I would tell you that I’m still working with special needs students by day and writing for We’re Not Really Strangers by night. I enjoy both jobs, but I’m beginning to long for something that is only mine. I’m thinking about school again. I’m thinking about a book someday. I’m thinking about my own story and the ways that only I can tell it. I’m wondering how I would change the world if I could.

If I called you right now to catch up, I would tell you that getting older is getting harder, but I am delighted to find that the wise ones were right all along. There is always something new to learn, especially about yourself, and, as it turns out, you can change as often and as much as you like. I’m learning a lot about people, about different ways to love, about how to be a good friend, about how to want more, and about how to accept less. I thought I knew all there was to know about all of this, but I was wrong, or maybe it’s just that those ideas worked for who I was and not for who I am becoming.

If I called you right now to catch up, I would ask if you knew what I meant. I would ask if you have ever felt the same. It’s hard to know if it’s just you or if everyone goes through the same things. It’s hard to know if you are explaining your life in a way that makes sense. If you are explaining your life the way it really feels to live it.

If I called you right now to catch up, I would tell you all that and a lot more has changed, but I would also tell you almost everything else has stayed exactly the same. I would tell you that I am still happy and healthy. I would tell you that I am still very much in love and still very married. I would tell you that my friendships have only deepened, that I am still working and writing when I can, and that, as always, I am frustrated by the how little time there is for all the thoughts I want to think, the things I want to make, and all the nothing I want to do.

If I called you now to catch up, I would tell you that I have missed you and that I hope you are doing well. I hope you aren’t feeling stressed. I hope your days feel like they belong to you. I hope all the things you love have stayed, and if you lost anything, I hope you know there is always more love you will feel someday.

If I called you now to catch up, I would tell you that I don’t want so much time to pass between us next time. I would tell you I have a plan to write more this month and to get to know who I am again in this place, but nothing in life ever seems to go according to my plans. I would tell you that I have doubts about whether I can really do it. Something always gets in the way. I always get in my way.

If I called you now to catch up, I would thank you for being here, for listening, and for making me feel seen. I would tell you to go enjoy the rest of your day and that I’ll call you again tomorrow.

🌶️

191 // 365

The summer is more than half over now, but instead of letting the looming end depress me, I’m feeling a sense of pride this time. This summer has been my summer. Nothing particularly big has happened. On the surface, my life looks nearly the same as it did in the spring, but something is different, something unseen, in me. Life suddenly feels deeper, wider, and more real. I’ve changed. I continue to change into myself.

I’ve been reading again. It’s been my goal for a while to read more from Kazuo Ishiguro, so I picked up Klara and the Sun. I made time to delve into Octavia Butler’s amazing work by starting with Parable of the Sower and its sequel Parable of the Talents. Most recently, I finished Pageboy by Elliot Page, which has opened me up in ways I imagine will take several posts to get through. Before the summer is over, I’m determined to read Spare from Prince Harry and finally find my way through Yan Lianke’s The Explosion Chronicles.

I started working out intensely. For years I’ve wanted to simply “get healthier”. I managed in half starts and half-assed attempts because it’s hard, but for reasons having less to do with health anymore and more and more every day to do with gender expression it’s become a goal to find a body I can feel more comfortable in. I’m grateful to have friends who, for entirely different reasons, are on the same path to push me in the most loving and hilarious ways.

My online life is being restructured. Blogging has come in starts and stops over the last few years but as I resettle into myself and reacquaint myself with my passions and possibilities, I find myself wanting to begin again. I’d hoped to turn this place into a sort of commonplace book with my own words mixed with words from others that have inspired me. Turns out I hate that. So, with the slow and agonizing death of Twitter and my reluctance to learn a new platform—it’s back to Tumblr I go.

In addition, I’m falling in love with the platform Are.na. Most of what I post there ends up on Tumblr and vice versa, but Are.na allows me room to think, to connect, and to explore in more methodical ways. It’s where I would like my ideas to begin, to germinate, and to grow before I bring them here.

Writing-wise things are going…okay. Near the end of 2022, I was offered a chance to write for the We’re Not Really Strangers community. I worked on both the expanded Self Love game, helped develop the Anxiety edition, and submitted questions, reminders, and threads for their social media platforms. It’s been as much fun as it has been stressful, with moments of exhilarating pride and cutting self-doubt.

Recently though my work with them has reduced, which, even though I’m sad about it, might just the blessing I need. Writing for someone else made me realize (remember) how much I want to write for myself, in my own voice. I want to break the rules. I want to be wordy and confrontational. I want to write from where I am, where I have been, from what hurt me. I want to say things that might make people want to turn away.

Personally, I am so happy it scares me. My marriage is as solid as ever. My friendships are deepening. My identity is a place I finally feel safe to explore fully. My day job continues to fulfill me and I have the best team of coworkers anyone could ask for. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. For some great pain to come and tear my life and my heart apart. Life always swings back. The universe corrects. Still, and so, I am taking in all the love I can get and finding new ways to give it now that I am surrounded by so many people who will allow me to.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have problems. That doesn’t me I don’t have a long way to grow still. Some things I’m working on now are: setting boundaries, making time to do things that are just for me, and continuing to cope with what I now know is anxiety, ADHD, and quite possibly CPTSD. How I’ve managed to keep my ulcerative colitis from flaring again is a miracle I can’t explain and how I’ve coped through family crisis after family crisis is a testament to the chaos I’ve learned to live with and the strength it took me to do so.

This post went on longer than I wanted it to as they tend to when I attempt to return. I want to end here bybeing honest, with myself most of all. No promises are being made here. No expectations are being set, only intentions, only expressions.

I want to write again, but I admit I don’t always know how I can. Turning these ideas, fragments, mere sparks into posts is a task I have not mastered yet. What I give myself here is permission. I am allowed to write anything I want, in whatever form, for whatever length, and as often and as not as feels right for me. It only has to be mine.

123 // Already Exhausted

I woke up already exhausted by the day ahead. After the alarm sounded, the most I could manage was a few steps toward getting ready for work before I was back in bed. I’d lost control of my body. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I couldn’t convince my feet forward, and the longer I lay there, the harder it got to change course. After a while, I was forced to accept that I just couldn’t do it. I stayed home.

I’ll admit I probably could have toughed it out, but I saw no benefit in doing so. I’ve come to a point in my life where I know that forcing myself through a bad day there is no way around won’t make anything better, least of all me.

If it had just been mental or emotional fatigue, I could have talked myself through it like I have been doing for a while, but maybe because I had been pushing myself too often already, my body stepped in and forced me to take a break.

I hate the term “mental health day”, though some might call what I did exactly that. I have noticed I’m not the only one who finds it hard to find the want on occasion, but what I see is people taking these “mental health days” and coming back as burned out and bad-tempered as they were before.

It’s rare that one day is enough of a break to relieve enough stress to change your perspective or renew your motivation and unless you spend it doing something that actually helps you’ll come back to your day-to-day feeling worse.

What helps is reflecting on what led to these feelings. When I thought about it I realized I’d been neglecting my mental health lately. My body had been trying to tell me in a kind and whispered way and I didn’t pay attention, so now it’s screaming.

This is why I have been so tired. This is why the tension in my neck has been giving me migraines. This is why my stomach has been hurting. This is why my mind feels scattered and full of fog. I’m stressed out. I am overwhelmed. I am anxious and quite probably depressed. I hear you. I hear you!

So I started today by sleeping. Sleep is the best way to heal your body fast and when I felt better in my body, I felt around in my mind for what I need to get back to myself today.

I spent the afternoon doing things I wanted to do and not feeling at all bad for not doing all the things I should be doing. I spent time on my blog. I wrote in my journals and notebooks. I listened to all the podcasts I have been saving for later. I talked to my sister. I made a lot of tea and the season’s first batch of cold brew coffee.

Then I thought about what I will need to feel less stressed and more fulfilled going forward.

What’s made the burnout so hard to see is that on the surface of my life, I really am happy overall. I’m married to the love of my life. I do good work that pays well. I even have a side job that speaks to my passions. I have friends that I enjoy spending time with and family that make me feel good about the life I have built for myself. What more could I need?

The problem is a lot of what I have in life leaves me with very little time for doing things that are just for me. I love my job, but it’s for someone else. I love my side hustle, but it’s also work I do for someone else. I love my wife, but marriage is rife with compromises. I love my friends and family, but the social expectations take a lot out of me.

When do I belong only to myself? When am I free? What do I do that is just for fun, or for nothing else other than it makes me feel good?

I don’t know how to fix it yet, but I do know what the problem is and that is a critical step toward a solution. I feel better already and knowing that it isn’t what I already have in life that is the problem, but something else entirely that I am missing makes it easier to return to my life of obligations and blessings both.

Suddenly, I’m hopeful and excited about tomorrow again.

She Decided

“Her nervous system had been through so much. She decided to spend the rest of her life calming the inflammation. Thoughts, feelings, memories, behavior, relations. She soothed it all with deep, Loving breaths and gentle practices. The softer she became with herself, the softer she became with the world, which became softer with her. She birthed a new generational cycle: Peace.”

— Dr. Jaiya John, Fragrance After Rain