In the words of Cheryl Strayed, one of my favorite authors, “Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

I don’t have many answers, but I do know one thing for sure… more curveballs are coming in this thing we call life. And sinkers. And no matter what they are, it doesn’t mean I did anything wrong. And it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong

I want to go and grow in the directions that feel right, and never row into the eddies that suck me in with their falsely peaceful swirls.

This blog may trigger people from my past who I will always hold close to my heart. I hold onto those individuals for who they were and who they are now because they are part of the deep roots connected to who I am today. I love watching the people I grew up with and seeing what they are doing with their lives. But, I need to cut the cord to my attachment to how they will feel about me if we have different political views, different ways of living our lives, different religious choices. We have lived very different lives at this point, but we do have a tangled web of our roots in common. I hold deeply in my core to our shared pasts and I honor it - for everything that it was and everything that it wasn’t.

I keep asking myself: what is the desire of my heart? What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?

“I am committed to break the chains of the scrappy life of grit and survival that have carried me to this point in life. I am determined to put on my oxygen mask first because I am worthy of happiness and success and love. I am doing this work so that my son and I can have the freedom to thrive , love abundantly, and live the life of adventure that our souls desire.”

This is the kind of pain that when we feel it, it is actually there sending us messages of love. It is the kind of pain that is there to bring me into the life that is serving the most authentic me. Truth, is needed. Truth is, I’m not okay and that is human.

Just like that - a blink of an eye and everything shifts. Our perspective goes from what we can accomplish and how we can move the needle to how to best assess the damage and how to recover. Life is incredibly precious and also so very fragile.

All week, I knew this day was coming and the lingering dread was ever present; my body felt weighted with shackles that got heavier each day. My heart was dense with a combination of grief and sadness.

What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?

My life flashing before my eyes…seeing the edge of the runway.

I tested positive for Covid and here’s what happened next!

Dot, when you fly an airplane, who puts on their oxygen mask first?