today i'm feeling an odd and poignant awareness of what my life looked like a year ago and what it looks like now. i have these strange anniversaries quite often lately, because in so many ways the day-to-day of my life has changed so much each year for the past several years.
it's similar in the sense there are still stressors and deep joys, but now the stressors are different, less powerful, and the joys are deeper, a product of learning concrete methods of self-care, ever so slowly.
gratitude and grief, awareness of brokenness and glimpses of real hope, these things are the rhythms of my life, always paired together, a double-edged blessing. a gift that pierces even as it heals.
and so the gratitude flows through me, following the rhythm of the breath. even when i am exhausted, the gratitude is there, amidst the longing for rest and renewal, helping me to remember how important it is to create spaces in which i can rest.
may your strange anniversaries bring you not sadness but gratitude for having lived and breathed and loved through another year of griefs and joys.
