Breathe, Stay Grateful, and Take Care of Yourselves

Today as I turned the corner onto the main road on my way to work, I caught a glimpse of the hot pink sunrise in my rear view mirror and a rainbow up ahead of me. A sign from the universe, I figured, that even though I had slept through all 3 of my alarms, maybe the world would be soft and kind instead of chaotic and cruel first thing on a Monday morning.

Somehow, I was still ahead of schedule. Still early, I used every red light that stopped me as a chance to breathe. Now that I’m done with all the important tasks on my to-do list for today, I’m here. And while I’m here I’ll remind you that everything I write is emotionally charged. I don't write to make anyone proud. I don't censor myself to keep anyone else comfortable. Everything I produce is a product of something I experience very intensely. Everything I bring here lives a full life in my head and my heart first. 2020 has done nothing other than provide me with more than a sufficient supply of difficult things to experience and feel my way through. January 9 of this year was the last time I remember having a sense of complete clarity. I caught the sunset on my way to dinner with my best friend, and in that moment everything was good.

A week later I lost a job and an income I relied on. From then on, very little (if anything) was comfortable. February brought 2 separate ER trips in a week, trouble getting a deep breath, and what ended up being a severely broken rib. Because of said injury, I struggled a week later when it came time to get dressed for a job interview - something I was hopeful about but that ended with a rejection letter and a drop in self-confidence.

But then I remembered the tattoo I got on my right arm for a reason, and the way it looked when my nurse inserted my IV over it and smiled at me. I reminded myself that with or without that job, the sun wouldn’t stop coming up again and demanding that I be brave enough to keep trying. The funny thing is that when I was getting an X-ray in the ER at 7 a.m. on a freezing February morning, and again when I got that rejection letter, all I kept thinking was, “things will get easier.” They have not. By March, the country was in lockdown because of Covid-19. My trip to see my family that I already had packed my suitcase for was canceled and I remember crying for what felt like selfish reasons. Things were already hard, and not knowing when I’d be able to hug them again made everything so much harder. April 14 was my best friends’ birthday, and quarantine meant making her a cake and delivering it to her front porch without contact so I could protect her and still make sure she knew that a pandemic wasn’t going to stop me from making sure she had the red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting that she loves. May was supposed to be my college graduation - but I finished my degree in pajama pants on my couch and celebrated with a drive-thru margarita because that’s where we are in the world now and I’ll never be one to turn down tequila. That was the night I learned how drastically things can change — and how okay that can be. In June, with $311 to my name and absolutely no plan for how I’d make anything work, I packed everything I had and moved out of the apartment I’d been sharing with my boyfriend. I cried the whole time, and a lot of the days that followed, and then I got smart. I accepted as many babysitting & here/there gigs as I could handle. I spent every free minute of my time hunting for an affordable apartment. I spent more time than ever before on the phone with people who matter to me. I looked through cookbooks and marked all the cheap, easy recipes with post-it notes. I started going for drives just to clear my head and sitting in coffee houses just so I had a space to write that wasn’t jam-packed with the clothes and belongings I still hadn’t had the energy to sort through. I started working two days a week at the store instead of just one. I found a protein coffee and fell in love with it. I saved every dollar I could and when I found the apartment that my heart felt at home in, I was able to make the deposit and I’ve called it home since the middle of July. August, September, October and November all seem to have melted together now — they were so full. So full of days that almost pushed me to my breaking point and others that made me feel like the luckiest human in the world. It’s been a good year. Hard, and scary, and uncomfortable, and confusing... but still good — and I think it’s important that I take the time to recognize that. It has challenged me as a daughter, a friend, an employee, a college grad, a girlfriend, and as a woman. It has forced me to evolve and adapt to change. It has taught me that growth is a very messy process. It has helped me be okay with not knowing and not being in control. It has been a year of everyone doing their best & collectively laughing at ourselves when we fail and to me, that’s beautiful. That doesn’t come easy. This has been the year of anti-expectation, no hugs and canceled plans - and as hard as that has been, it has made room for so many great things. Things like small, intimate celebrations. Patio dinners, family zoom calls, clocking into work from the living room, more time to be creative, new recipes, self-reflection, more forgiveness, more teamwork, more sacrifice, and in the grand scheme of things — more humanity. 2020 has shown us both how terrible people can be to each other and also how far kindness can go. Kindness will always be what we need to focus on. Kindness will always come out on top. Some days feel like a race to see if I can get everything done that I need to in 24 hours. Other days seem to be 24 hours too long. It’s a weird place and a weird time and this is a very weird part of my life.

But it's good and there's a lot to be grateful for.

I'm grateful to get good workouts in again and to be able to breathe deeply without pain. I'm grateful my body did the hard thing and recovered.

I'm grateful for quiet nights in dark rooms, with candles from my mama and blank notebooks to fill.

I'm grateful for family game nights that go until we can barely keep our eyes open.

I'm grateful for golden mornings before long shifts that test my patience.

I think if there's one important lesson I've learned in 2020, it's to breathe whenever the opportunity is there because there's really no way to know what's coming. You never know when you'll lose a job, or break a rib, or learn what it's like to live through a global pandemic. You never know how different everything may suddenly have to be, or how okay you'll have no choice but to be with all of it.

Breathe when you oversleep.

Breathe at every red light.

Breathe when you get rejection letters.

Breathe when you're impatient.

Breathe because you can and breathe because you never know when it might not be so easy.

Breathe and know that you matter.

I hope you have found parts of this wild year to appreciate.

I'm certain of nothing but I will leave you with this:

I hope things get easier.

I hope things get better.

And I hope you know that even when you feel alone, you are not.

You are loved.

Please take care of yourselves. See you later.

xox

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