The weight of worry.

I am sitting here by myself. My cat is purring, and my dog is speaking in gentle gruffs as he twitches his way through a dream.

A smile crosses my face.

Watching pets be pets has pureness. Pure perfection.

My smile widens. I feel relief. I feel joy. And most of all, I feel hope.

This past year has been hard. On my mind. On my body. On my spirit.

Every inch of flesh and every molecule in my body has felt the weight of worry.

My spirit was buried. The essence of me trapped under the rubble. Suffocating and still under the pressure of uncertainty.

There is no road map for this uncertainty. No GPS to guide me. No north star in the night sky to follow. To show me the way. All truths are hidden under uncertainty. Buried under the rubble. Not crushed, just buried.

Every morning I waited to hear footsteps. A sound that was once so familiar and taken for granted just one year before. I will never take it for granted again. Never. There is a before and after. My father’s stroke in between. A moment in time that forever changed me.

The sound of those footsteps marked the day’s beginning. And once I heard it, the sound of my relief immediately followed – a breath trapped in my lungs, stuck under my ribs – now set free. We begin a new day.

Worry can be a toxifying foe. Its only friend is doubt, which is to say no friend at all.

Worry grips and tightens. Strangling what is whole and good. Suffocating what remains, until what remains becomes nothing at all.

Its defenses are ruthless, an army of calm haters.

I lost myself in worry.

But worry is also love in disguise. Every part of me knows this. And with love comes hope.

I found myself in hope. And all the love in between.

Slivers of hope filter through the cracks. Cracks in the rubble. Rays of sunlight beaming through. Fighting with light every day to gain a wider berth.

Hope knows no time. It has no beginning and no end. It just is. You can’t touch it or see it, but without it, you have nothing. My spirit knows this.

One sliver of hope can fill the deepest, darkest hollow. It expands and touches every corner. Fills every inch. Every crevice.

Hope is everything.

Every breath.

Every smile.

Every laugh.

Every footstep.

Every chance to be. Again. And Again.

And again.

With hope, love, and gratitude,