I blinked and it’s now mid-April.

So much has happened: J turned two, we went on a ski trip to Pyeongchang and took a vacation to Thailand with my parents, my brother and his fiance A visited, there were playdates with friends, dates with girlfriends, dates with my husband and all the moments in between.

But as much as there has been a lot of activity in my life in 2019, there’s been maybe even more going on internally. In 2019, I decided to receive counseling/life-coaching. It required digging deep inside myself, being still in the quiet places, visiting the dark places.

Recently, I read Rupi Kaur’s the sun and her flowers. Her poems spoke to my heart, brought healing in places I didn’t even know I needed and this one in particular pretty much sums up this year, at least thus far.

it has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. i learned everything is temporary. moments. feelings. people. flowers. i learned love is about giving. Everything. And letting it hurt. I learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. i learned all things come in twos. life and death. pain and joy. salt and sugar. me and you. it is the balance of the universe. it has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. making friends out of strangers. making strangers out of friends. learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix just about everything. and for the pains it can’t there will always be my mother’s arms. we must learn to focus on warm energy. always. soak our limbs in it and become better loves to the world. for if we can’t learn to be kind to each other how will we ever learn to be kind to the most desperate parts of ourselves.
-rupi kaur “the sun and her flowers”