10/04/2026
I’ve been thinking about writing this for a few weeks. Not my whole story. God knows that would take a while. 😏 Just a page from right now.
I’ve been quiet.
I’ve been absent.
My business has suffered.
Messages have gone unanswered longer than they normally would.
Things I fully intended to do didn’t get done.
It isn’t because I don’t care.
Sometimes I make the list.
I have the plan.
I know exactly what I need to do.
I even want to do it.
And sometimes I just can’t.
I live with depression.
I don’t say that for sympathy, and I’m not ashamed to say it either.
Some of my darker days don’t look particularly dramatic from the outside.
Sometimes the goal for the day becomes brushing my teeth.
Putting on clean clothes.
Answering one message.
Doing one thing when my head had planned twenty.
And that can be incredibly frustrating when you are someone who is used to doing, fixing, organizing, helping, creating, showing up.
The last several months have also brought some medical things that have forced me to pay more attention to my body and my limits. I don’t need to share every detail of that. But I am learning — sometimes very reluctantly — that pushing harder is not always the answer.
Patience with yourself is hard.
Giving yourself grace sounds beautiful when it’s written on a coffee mug. Actually doing it when you feel like you should be doing more is a whole different story.
Then sometimes life doesn’t wait for you to catch up.
You get hit with something else.
And then something else.
And pretty soon, when you’re 5'1", life feels about seven feet tall.
That’s kind of where I am.
October is already a difficult month for me. My dad died October 19th, nine years ago. I have never believed the saying that time heals all wounds. It hasn’t been true for me.
I think time slowly teaches you how to live differently.
You build a life around the empty space. You laugh again. You function. You celebrate things. You love people. You keep moving. But that space doesn’t magically disappear because enough years have passed.
And now I am saying goodbye to Lola, my first cat, who has been part of my life for fourteen years.
She was diagnosed unexpectedly with lung cancer, and Tuesday she will cross the Rainbow Bridge here at home.🌈
I am heartbroken.
I have cried more tears in four days than I thought the human body could manufacture. Apparently we do not run out. Who designed that feature? 😑
Right now she sleeps on my bathrobes because they are her favorite place. I carry her outside. I sit with her. I watch her breathe. I hold her when she wants me. And I am trying very hard not to spend every minute thinking about the fact that there are only so many of those minutes left.
And while all of this is happening, regular life still happens too.
Bills still arrive. Work still exists. People still need answers. Laundry still appears out of nowhere. Events happen. Football games are played. Grandchildren have homecoming dances. The world does not stop because your little corner of it hurts.
Maybe that’s part of why I wanted to write this.
Not because I want everyone to know everything. I don’t.
Not because I am asking anyone to fix me. You can’t.
And not because I think my struggles are greater than anyone else’s. They aren’t.
I just don’t want to pretend that I haven’t been struggling simply because I kept most of it to myself.
Sometimes people disappear a little because they are angry. Sometimes because they can’t care.
And sometimes they are simply using everything they have to get through the day in front of them.
Sometimes “doing my best” looks nothing like what my best looked like six months ago.
Sometimes the win really is brushing your teeth.
Sometimes your safe place looks different from somebody else’s. Sometimes your timeline is different. Sometimes what helps you would make absolutely no sense to another person.
And I think we have to stop deciding what somebody else’s grief, depression, healing, coping, or recovery is supposed to look like.
I have people helping me. I go to therapy. I have medical providers I trust. I talk. I work on things. I understand a lot about what is happening inside my own head.
And sometimes it is still just hard.
Those things can all be true at the same time.
I don’t have some beautiful ending for this because I’m still in the middle of it.
I’m sad. I’m tired. I’m overwhelmed. I’m grieving. I’m trying.
And for right now, maybe that is enough.
This isn’t my whole story.
It’s just the page I’m on.
And this page... EFFING sucks.
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