Our Winter Ride

I have started writing this week's blog many times the last few days, never certain how to sum up the world right now. Everywhere I turn, no matter who I speak to, the mood is the same. As winter is finding its way in with the first snow this week and colder temperatures the "blah" feeling is all encompassing.

While the last nine months have been more challenging than we could have imagined we found ways to “live” outside safely- to see family and friends and even some days find adventures. As we are forced inside I am having a hard time accepting again a shift in our normal back to a more isolated lifestyle- to lose the outlet we all need. I trust like every other shift we will find our way but the next two months feel daunting at best.

And yet, I should know this is the way this kind of ride works, we go up and down and we have to hang on trusting that eventually our dips will rise again. I think my own recovery is also at play as I am still healing slower than anticipated. But unlike how I normally function, I am letting myself rest when I need to. I am asking for help -something I do not do easily and I am trying to give myself the space to heal- to be kind to myself.

I think that is what we all need to remember right now- be kind to yourself. The end of this year will look different than any of us have known before and I anticipate we will all in the next week or two have a hard day - when life feels impossible and lonely and not very festive. And I remind myself it is OK to feel this - to be in that moment upset - and I do not have to rationalize it or apologize for it or even immediately fix it. I can just be and do whatever I need to do.

I also remind myself that as a world we are in this together-connected by shared loss and heartbreak-and I have to believe hope. I know from my own rare disease ride much of my strength to push forward comes from feeling the support of my community-knowing that I do not have to do this solely on my own. Please know you are not alone. We will get through these harder days together, lifting each other up as we all look towards our better tomorrow’s.

And as my favorite poet Kai Skye (Pen name Brian Andreas) reminds us, that alone is worth celebrating, "Everywhere the world stopped and we heard our own hearts in the quiet saying, Reach out and lift each other up, if you wonder what there is to celebrate this year."