Anxious, Exhausted, and Still Here

    It has been over 2 years since my last blog post. In my defense, a lot has happened.  

   I had surgery in early 2024 to remove a mass from my cheek.  After weeks of despair, stress and recovery, I learned it was benign.  

   My father fell ill in late 2024 and passed away.  Soon after uprooting my elderly mother from Florida to Chicago, my eldest child started high school. So again, a lot has happened.

  Then the current administration took office.   

  The current mood of many Americans isn't quite rage, though rage is present.  It isn't desperation, though that is present too. It is closer to exhaustion: a bone-deep, months-long weariness with a political environment that never seems to quiet down, offer resolution, or let anyone fully breathe.

  Roughly one-third of Americans named politics and government as the top issue facing the country, a level rivaled only by Taiwan, which faces a potential military threat from China. That is a remarkable finding for a nation not at war on its own soil.

"The question is no longer whether Americans are stressed by politics. It is what that stress is doing to us — to our sleep, our relationships, our sense of what's possible." — Common Ground Dispatch editorial 

   At least we have the hope of Spring.  The air is softening and light is lingering a little longer in the early evening.  Something within us, deep and cellular, is beginning to exhale.

   Spring carries its own specific quality of invitation. This spring feels like it is asking us to be curious again — about the world, about each other, about what we actually want now that we've had the winter months to sit with ourselves.

    I challenge you to make a list of what you want to grow this season, not a productivity list, but a living list: a friendship you've let go fallow, a skill you've been curious about, a place you've been meaning to walk to.  

    Please send your list to lcg@wittychicks.com so that I can share it on the blog and encourage others to make their own lists.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
― Rumi