It’s difficult, this life filled with flashbacks and sidebars with a brain dead set on defying you at every turn. Frustratingly so. A life which seems to ebb and flow between complicated and blissfully simple when we think back to the before but get stuck wondering if there ever was truly a before.

Before what?

As I sit here, contemplating all that I have been through with my mental health this morning, I realize there have been challenges all along. Some were smaller than others, but they were there, pebbles along my path to the mountain I would eventually run smack dab into.

What does this all mean? Does it need to mean anything?

Life is a journey, I’ve come to realize, and it can either be on a smooth highway or a bumpy back road. The scenery is better on the back roads. So much richer. Particularly this time of year when fall captures the trees and dresses them up for one last ball.

This has been a particularly tough week for some reason. Sleep has eluded me for the better part of the week, I’m healing from a nasty cold, and I am fighting some dental stuff. In the midst of all of this, I forgot to take my medication yesterday.

I am trying to be kind to myself. To listen to my body and do what it needs me to do without guilt but that’s not quite working because the guilt is rapidly rising and I’m unable to find my life boat.

So here I sit, sipping coffee, arbitrarily typing, hoping that as my neurons fire into the keyboard something will finally spark and start my engine.

Deep down, though, I know today is just a tough day at the end of a rough week at the end of a tumultuous month with more unknown in front of us. I also know that this too, will pass. That I’m stronger than all of this.

Know what? You’re stronger than all of your stuff too. You are. Do what you need to do for you today and then do just a little bit more. And tomorrow? Well, deal with it tomorrow. Baby steps. We’ll all get there eventually. Together. Because we? Are warriors.

{photo credit: Pixabay}