Hello there, friend,
Last night, I laid in bed for two hours before finally getting up to read. I sat on the couch, finishing the last fifty pages of When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, trying to hold back tears. I closed the book, and cried for a while. Earlier in the day, I had listened to a podcast where a woman mentioned that what the world needs most is people who are fully alive. It stayed with me all day. But here I was at the tail end of a memoir about a neurosurgeon taken too early from life by cancer. He was only 37.
I've mentioned before the transition into middle adulthood. No longer the graduate, the bride, the new mom, it's time to live out some of the questions that were there in the beginning. Even if the days don't look the same, they feel the same. A lot of days, I feel an undercurrent of deep sadness in the mundane, everyday-ness of things. But that feeling is balanced by moments of joy -- realizing my son, who dressed himself, wore his underwear backwards all day; remembering with my husband the slogan of the first town we lived in ("A Good Place to Live") and our inside joke about it; snuggling with my almost-seven year-old girl and reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Like you said, taking a moment to be grateful makes a big difference.
This is our 300th post. Each time we reach another milestone, I feel so grateful -- for you, for our friendship, for our community. In my middle adulthood, this project is one of the things that's helping hold me together. So, I would like to share with you a Mark Twain quote I happened upon yesterday:
Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile.Have a lovely weekend!
xo,
L
