Life Feels Hard

   In some parts of the world it is the height of Spring and in some parts of the world it is Hurricane Season, some parts of the world are getting snow and here where I live, there is a lot of rain and grey hazy days. However the last two days have been sun filled. The leaves this year have been incredible in their hues of color and it feels like this celebratory upwelling to fill your soul before the grey of winter hits. I keep gazing at it, asking it to fill my soul full to help me through. 

  Since I live near an ocean and rain forest areas we don't often get a lot of snow ~ there are grey days over and over and over again for months. People here develop seasonal depression. If you live in a cramped house and it is loud and people have over taxed nervous systems....it gets a bit much. I am dreading it this year more than most. I have a toddler who is in the height of making her wishes known and she has a lot of them and they are made known loudly. I have an eleven year old who run on such high emotional alert and is so easily triggered it is very challenging. I have a child battling crippling depression and anxiety right now and I am trying so hard to keep up with everyone but I more often that not am letting people down.

  However, I am not cleaning up from a massive hurricane like my dear friend in Jamaica is. I am not going to be cleaning up after animals and feeding them during deep snow falls. I am simply going to be here in my home doing all I can to help all these little ones who need me to be their compass. This is a blessing. I keep telling myself I didn't sign up for an easy life. Any person who has children has not signed up for an easy life. Throw trauma and anxiety that is chronic on top of it, and all the other challenges our family has, and it makes things what they are.

  I wish I had better words to express how I feel. I blog for others but I also blog for myself. I look back and see what I have experienced, what I have learned, how we have moved forward or fallen back. Right at this moment in time, November 2025, life feels hard. Back in November 2023 life felt pretty overwhelming as well. The theme of my life is that a lot of things feel daunting because they actually are. 

  However today the sun shone and its light made it into my living room window and before that I attended church and the sun shone through the windows there as well. My two little girls had dressed up as dancers and were full of joy and celebration of that slice of their day. The sun was on them, their hair was illuminated and their eyes shone. It was pure beauty. For a short time everything lifted away and I could feel the light and the joy so fully. 

  If life wasn't hard a lot of the time ~ maybe that moment would not have been so important to me ~ but it was so precious and I felt the relief of joy so deeply. I think that is what living is truly about. You have permission from your body to feel it all. You walk through the tears, pain, grief, anger, but you also dance through the joy, beauty, freedom and bliss that life also offers.