That, perhaps, is the difference between a crisis and a chrysalis. One keeps us frozen in fear. The other slowly reshapes us.
Technically, I’m not even fully in my midlife years yet.
And yet my body arrived early to the party.
A complete hysterectomy fast-tracked me into conversations I thought I still had years to prepare for.
Ironically, some circles don’t allow me in to the conversation because I’m “far too young” to know what menopause is.
It seems my reproductive system retired before society was emotionally prepared to handle it. Medically, I pass the test but I always get ID’d at the door.
I was medically launched into menopause with all the glamorous perks.
Hot flashes. Joint pain. An increasingly fragile relationship with sleep. And the deeply humbling realization that apparently your underarms and mid range can become flabby despite hours of working out at the gym.
(Nothing prepares you for sneezing incorrectly in your 40s.)
My body has adopted the classic expired warranty strategy, catastrophic synchronized failure. I’ve entered the ‘everything squeaks, leaks, or spasms unexpectedly’ chapter of ownership. My body has moved beyond ‘minor repairs’ and into ‘have you considered replacing the whole unit?’ territory.
Which is why a phrase I recently heard on the podcast Hello Menopause! grabbed my attention.
“Midlife chrysalis.”
Not midlife crisis. Midlife chrysalis.
The episode featured Chip Conley talking about reinvention, and I chose to listen to this episode because crisis sounds like collapse. Losing control. Becoming less.
Like panic bangs and plans to live “off-grid” and taking up emotional support hobbies. Sourdough starter anyone?
But chrysalis?
That sounds like transformation.
Messy. Strange. Hidden. Uncomfortable. Necessary.
A chrysalis says. You are not falling apart. You are simply changing form.
I think many of us who have experienced chronic illness, disability, grief, loss, burnout, etc. arrive at this transformation long before the culture expects us to.
Some of us are forced into reinvention before we even finish becoming who we thought we would be.
The Crisis
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.
Sometimes crayon. When I need a little more whimsy in my days.
There were years where survival became the main objective. Years where my nervous system felt like a shaken vending machine full of stress hormones. Years where I thought resilience meant pushing harder instead of listening deeper.
And then came the hysterectomy.
One of those dividing-line experiences where life becomes Before and After.
Before, I still secretly believed if I tried hard enough I might someday return to the old version of myself.
After, I slowly began realizing there may not be a way back. Emotional landslides and experiential cave-ins had blocked that passage way.
Forward and through became my only options. Through self-realizations. Humbling concessions. Constant negotiations between mind and body.
And maybe that is where the chrysalis begins.
The Chrysalis
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
A chrysalis does not look impressive from the outside.
It looks still. Inactive. Even broken down.
But inside? An extraordinary reorganization is happening.
And I think that’s what midlife (or medically-induced midlife-adjacent existentialism) can become.
Not a crisis to survive. But a transformation to participate in. Whole-heartedly.
Chip Conley talked about how the first half of life is often about accumulation.
We gather. Relationships. Responsibilities. Possessions. Roles. Expectations. Obligations. Dreams that once fit.
And eventually we become emotionally overstuffed.
He described midlife as “a great midlife edit.”
As I listened I considered the fact that chronic illness forces the edit whether you volunteer readily or not.
You simply cannot carry everything forever when your body already feels like it’s carrying a weighted backpack full of loose cutlery.
At some point you must ask important questions.
What still fits?
What actually matters?
What has become lukewarm in my life?
Do you know what a lukewarm life looks like? One of the lines from the podcast,
Pouring out part of your tea allows you to pour some hot new tea into the cup.
Because some things are not meant to last forever. Not every friendship. Not every role. Not every expectation you once had for yourself.
And maybe releasing those things is not failure. Maybe it’s pruning.
The forest understands this better than we do.
The Forest
One of the reasons forest therapy has become so meaningful to me is because the forest never panics about transformation.
Forest therapy has taught me that stillness is not the same thing as stagnation. Sometimes what appears dormant is actually becoming. I wrote more about that in this post, Nourish Your Nervous System: Forest Therapy Insights
Deadfall becomes nourishment. Burned places grow new life. Trees release entire branches to survive harsh seasons. These changes that seem negative are essential to a healthy forest.
Humans also require those experiences that appear negative and are actually essential for a healthy life.
In the forest, decay and renewal, soft and hard, smooth and sharp are all happening simultaneously.
And honestly, that feels like midlife too.
Especially for those of us living in bodies that have known pain.
We have experienced days where tears of pain rolled down the left cheek while tears of joy rolled down the right.
We know how to hold grief and gratitude at the same time.
That depth changes a person.
We know what it is to laugh in waiting rooms. To find beauty in tiny victories. To feel gratitude and grief sharing the same chair.
I have learned that emotional pain cannot simply be numbed away the same way physical pain can. There is no ibuprofen for identity loss. No heating pad for disappointment. No prescription for becoming someone new.
And while suffering itself is not noble, I do think deep experiences deepen people.
My chronic comrades know this.
Pain can also make people bitter, stuck, isolated, hardened.
That, perhaps, is the difference between a crisis and a chrysalis. One keeps us frozen in fear. The other slowly reshapes us.
If we allow ourselves to learn from it. We can become more compassionate. Tender. Wise. Present. Better able to sit beside someone else’s suffering without looking away.
As they said in the podcast,
Our painful life lessons are the raw material for our future wisdom.
I believe that in my soul.
The Offering
Sometimes our culture subtly teaches that the people worth listening to are the successful ones. The polished ones. The credentialed ones. The endlessly productive ones
What can we do about this imbalance? If you ever deem somebody less than you… ask yourself what they can teach you.
Because some of the wisest people I know have had their lives interrupted.
Some had to abandon dreams they loved. Some never got the education they were capable of and deserved. Some are rebuilding lives with parts and pieces they never would have chosen.
And still. They carry wisdom.
Do not think less of yourself because your life required adaptation. You are not behind because your path bent unexpectedly.
Some of us have earned emotional depth the hard way.
And if you cannot live the exact life you once pictured?
Find something to run toward anyway.
Even if your pace looks different now. Even if you have to limp toward it some days. Even if your dream has changed shape entirely.
A chrysalis does not become what it originally was.
That is the whole point!
A Forest Therapy Invitation: Chrysalis Walk
The next time you’re in a forest, park, or tree-lined path, try this:
Walk slowly and notice signs of transition.
What is decomposing?
What is emerging?
What is shedding?
What is adapting?
What still carries beauty despite visible damage?
Then ask yourself:
What version of myself am I grieving?
What no longer fits?
What wants to emerge now?
What if this season is transformation instead of failure?
You do not need immediate answers.
The forest is always becoming new. Slowly. Over time.
The Question
One question from the podcast we can all ask ourselves,
Ten years from now, what will I regret if I don’t learn or do now?
Conley called anticipated regret a form of wisdom. Chronic illness teaches you that later is not guaranteed. Perfect timing is imaginary. And someday can become never surprisingly fast.
So maybe this chapter is not about trying to reclaim who we once were.
Maybe it is about becoming more fully ourselves.
Hot flashes. Heating pads. Existential growth. And all.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
My physiotherapist, “J,” has been with me through it all.
She has seen me on some of my best days over the past 15 years of working with her.
The day I told her I was finally pregnant with the baby I had tried nearly a decade to conceive.
The day I said, “I’m running again.” After years of pain making even the thought of it feel impossible. My body has approached physical activity like a suspicious cat approaches a cucumber in the past.
She heard me process the long, exhausting teenage years of push and pull with my oldest child. And then my second. Followed by my third. The painful years that felt like emotional whiplash and then she celebrated with me when they all graduated.She understood firmly the mentality of, We did it! On each occasion.
She walked alongside me through buying and selling homes.
When Kenzie got engaged. Jamie transitioned. Riley moved in with his girlfriend.
When all three times I found out I was going to be a grandma, she was one of the first people to know.
When I started a forest therapy business and dared to believe healing could become something I offered others.
She has witnessed joy. Growth. Milestones.
Baby #4Grandbaby #1I’m running outside!Grandbaby #2Riley and GreyGraduation #1Graduation #2Engagement #1Home sale #2
We have laughed together as I walked around in a body that behaved like it’s been assembled from spare parts with vague instructions and one missing screw.
Proof that life can still bloom in hard soil.
And she has also sat with me on some of my worst days.
The day I fell off a boat and we both knew recovery would not be quick.
The years I fought to be taken seriously by medical professionals before finally getting the MRI that revealed my bone spur. Disappointing specialist appointments. Medical gaslighting.
Family job losses.
Kids in car crashes.
The miscarriage of the baby I had fought so hard to conceive. She cried with me that day. And the day I told her I was going ahead with the hysterectomy that closed that door entirely. We were so hopeful that would help my overall health.
Surgeries that did not go well.
The passing of dear friends.
The painful decision to close my business and then Brent’s and eventually to stop working.
Leaving the farm and grieving all that move represented. She understood, she’s a farm girl.
And the appointment Christmas Eve where she examined me and realized something was deeply wrong. I had almost no muscle mass. I was so weak and felt so broken, useless, a waste of skin.
Car crash #1Fell off the boat An MRI changed everything Following surgeryCar crash #3Car crash #2Farm life
I could write pages about what J and I have discussed over the years. At some point, she became more than someone treating my body. She became someone quietly witnessing my life story unfold.
The size of my kids when I started seeing J
The size of my kids today.
And then one ordinary appointment changed how I saw myself.
It started like any other. I explained where the pain was. What had shifted in my workouts. What stress was doing to my body. What daily life had looked like since we last met.
She examined me, worked through familiar areas of tension, and after a moment of silence she said something I think applies to all my chronic comrades:
“You’re a success story. Do you know that?”
My first instinct is always to deflect a compliment.
I think you have me confused with someone whose joints aren’t held together by determination and prayer alone.
But it felt true. It felt like the most true diagnosis I’d ever been given.
She continued, (and I want you to see yourself in this,)
When you look at where you’ve been on your lowest days and where you are now. This is a success story.
You could have closed the doors on life. Stayed in bed. Turned inward. Leaned into fear of the future. You could choose to live frustrated and depressed. White-knuckling your way through existence.
But instead, you keep rebuilding. You keep getting stronger. No matter what knocks you down, you come back.
Like one of those punching balloons from childhood. The ones you smack into the floor and somehow they pop right back up, mildly annoying and aggressively optimistic.
I have a core memory of my cousin’s party. They had one of those balloons in the backyard. As I played with it I wondered what was inside that made it keep popping up.
If resilience had a mascot, I might nominate a half-inflated punching balloon and a woman with heating pads.
J was right though. That’s me. That’s you.
What is it that’s inside us that keeps us popping up, time after time?
Not graceful. Not elegant. Occasionally leaking air. But still coming back up.
Again. And again. And again.
J encouraged me to start writing it down. My story. To let others read it. And that is where this blog began.
A success story, heavily disguised as a challenging life story.
Chronic Pain Does Not Stay in One Box
If you live with chronic pain, you understand this. Pain does not politely stay in your shoulder. Or your spine. Or your hips. Or your joints.
It leaks. It spreads.
It enters your sleep, your patience, your relationships, your finances, your confidence, your work, your parenting, and your identity.
It is never just physical.
The dis-ease spreads just like disease. Not because we are weak. But because pain is invasive.
Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival.
Yet many people living with chronic pain quietly continue. They raise children. Show up to work. Try to exercise. Cook supper. Pay bills. Care for aging parents. Smile through appointments (and cry after.) Fold laundry while wondering why their body feels like it was assembled by a distracted Ikea employee.
And still… they continue.
That is not failure. That is resilience. That is success.
Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
One of the hardest parts of chronic pain is not always the pain itself. Sometimes it is the disbelief. Unfortunately, this can include close family members. Friends. Employers.
And yes, medical professionals.
When symptoms are invisible, people often assume they are exaggerated. If scans are unclear, they question your tolerance. If you “look fine,” they assume you must be fine.
And so many of us become defenders. Explainers. Evidence gatherers.
Trying desperately to prove that our pain is real. Trying to earn validation. Trying to convince others that suffering exists even when they cannot see it.
When attacked by error, truth is better served by silence than by a bad argument.
That quote hit me.
We do not need to defend ourselves from every misunderstanding. Not every person deserves access to our explanations. Not every accusation needs a rebuttal. Not every skeptical glance deserves our emotional energy.
There is a time to inform. And there is a time to walk away.
Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
Silence is not surrender. Sometimes silence is strength. Sometimes it is peace. Sometimes it is refusing to spend precious energy proving your pain to people committed to misunderstanding it.
Do not explain. Your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you.
A Forest Therapy Practice: Seeing Yourself in the Landscape
One of the most grounding practices I return to comes from forest therapy.
Take a small mirror with you into nature.
Stand among trees.
Or beneath open sky.
Hold the mirror so your reflection appears framed by branches, clouds, leaves, or light.
Look at yourself. Really look. See your face inside the larger landscape. Notice how you are not separate from nature. You belong here too.
Then ask yourself:
Where was I a year ago?
What have I survived?
How far have I come?
What strength still exists in me?
Appreciate where you are now. Not because healing is complete. But because progress deserves to be witnessed. And because you still have what it takes to continue.
Rivers don’t apologize for moving slowly at some points on their path.
Seasons do not shame themselves for resting.
Maybe we shouldn’t either.
My Success Story Is Still Being Written
I used to think success had to look polished. Strong. Linear. Easy to explain. Now I know better.
Sometimes success looks like rebuilding muscle. Sometimes it looks like surviving grief. Sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like walking instead of running. Sometimes it looks like closing one chapter when life forces your hand. Sometimes it looks like bouncing back up like an emotionally exhausted inflatable clown with stubborn determination.
I have bounced back like a plastic bag caught in a prairie wind.
Messy. Crooked. Still rising. Still trying.
And maybe that is enough.
Actually
Maybe that is extraordinary.
You are a success story.
If pain has tried to rewrite your life and you still continue…
By the time you reach the last spring, your hands are shaking.You’re sweating. Frustrated. Everything keeps getting more crooked.
You realize too late. You started wrong. 😑
Anyone who has assembled a trampoline knows the rule. You don’t hook the springs in a circle, one after another. If you do, the tension pulls unevenly. By the end, you don’t have the strength to stretch it into place.
You begin with four. Evenly spaced. Then every ten. Then every five. Then every two.
You build balance first. Then you stretch.
Cruising the Chaos of Life’s Pulls
We are pulled by responsibilities👈, expectations👉, needs👆, roles👇, diagnoses🫵, deadlines🫡.
Work. Family. Health. Friendships. Faith. Community. The list goes on.
Each one a spring tugging at the mat of our life.
When we hook ourselves fully to one area without anchoring wisely, the whole thing warps. We overextend in one direction and find ourselves weak in another.
Sometimes that is the season we are meant to live.
After giving birth, your whole being stretches toward that tiny life. Other areas thin out. That is not failure. That is devotion. In time, the tension redistributes.
But chronic pain does not redistribute so gently.
Chronic Pain: The Illusion of Perfect Harmony
When you live with chronic pain, you are constantly pulled toward managing symptoms, setting and going to appointments, pacing yourself, rest, prevention. Your energy budget is small. Other areas stretch thin.
Then something hopeful happens. 😮
You focus on your health. 😧
You improve. 🫢
You feel almost normal. 🥹
Everyone else sees it too. 🙌
Schedules begin to fill 🗓️ Invitations multiply 🥳 Expectations quietly rise 🫴 . The springs of “normal life” begin snapping back into place 🫰.
You let yourself believe it. 😄
Maybe I’m better. 😂
Then exhaustion crashes in You stare at your calendar at night and wonder what you’ve done to yourself 😳 A small slip becomes months of recovery 😵 One flare unravels carefully rebuilt stability 😞.
And then come the looks 😒🙂↔️
The subtle confusion 🤨
The well-meaning advice 🤓
The unspoken question: Why can’t she just get it together?
Living with chronic illness often means managing other people’s perception of your crooked mat.
There is grief in that.
Grief in not being believed. In being misunderstood. In having to explain your limits and have them questioned again and again.
Eventually, you begin to let springs go.
Work (sounds great, it’s decidedly not great)
Hobbies
Certain relationships
Many dreams have to shift
Not because you lack discipline. Because you are learning discernment.
Tregi:
“A tender form of sorrow- one that doesn’t overwhelm but lingers softly in the soul, and it’s the ache of remembering something beautiful that’s gone, the silence after a goodbye, the bitter sweet pull of nostalgia. “
–
The Spring I Learned to Release
Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time.
One sunny day I carried my journal and scriptures out to our trampoline. It was warm, the sun pooling across the mat. A strange place to do cold, hard work.
I read.
I prayed.
I journaled.
I napped.
I prayed again.
And then I cried.
And cried some more.
To say I wanted one more baby doesn’t begin to explain the years of ache. The doctors knew what my body could not sustain. I knew it too.
But my heart wasn’t ready. I wanted to leave the doors open for God to do His work.
That day on the trampoline, I realized I was hanging on to a spring that was pulling my whole life crooked. The decision to have a hysterectomy felt like unhooking something sacred. I needed my Saviour in it with me.
It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made. Letting that spring go felt like loss. But when I finally released it. After some time. I stopped trying to force tension where my body could not hold it. And space opened for healing. Opportunities I never could have seen coming appeared. Energy shifted. My frame steadied.
The mat did not look like I once imagined. But it began to hold me differently.
Calm comes when I choose my springs intentionally.
Cultivating Serenity Amidst the Clutter
Inner calm is not equal distribution. It is intentional tension.
It is knowing which four anchors belong in this season and which ones do not.
There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.
You are not weak for having fewer springs. You are wise for choosing them. Balance may not look symmetrical. Your mat may not look like someone else’s.
But even a crooked mat can hold us.
And in the quiet of the forest, we learn to stretch for only what weare meant to hold.
What a blessing it is to look around and see pieces of my old prayers scattered everywhere.
The body is not an obstacle to the soul, but its instrument and means of expression.
— Pope Saint John Paul II
When I tell someone I have chronic fatigue, they often laugh softly, like I’ve made a dramatic overstatement.
Don’t we all have chronic fatigue these days? I imagine them thinking.
And I get it. Life is exhausting. The world is loud. Everyone is stretched thin.
But when you add the ME part. That’s the myalgic encephalomyelitis. Suddenly the picture changes. Here is a quick breakdown of ME and some of its symptoms.
ME–CFS isn’t about being worn out from a long day of being human. It didn’t start from lack of conditioning. I did not cause this.
It’s about being tired all the time.
Pushing through all the time.
And paying dearly for it afterward.
I like to share this graphic 👇🏼 that shows a breakdown of the name of the condition. More than a bad night’s sleep or a long, hard day. This isn’t a mindset problem. It’s not laziness. It’s not weakness. It’s a body that can no longer produce or distribute energy the way it once did.
And that comes with grief.
Grief for the skills and abilities I no longer have.
Grief for the version of me that could say yes without calculating the cost.
Grief for the way I worry I’ll be perceived (unreliable, flaky, distant) when really I’m just surviving in a body that demands a different rhythm.
Unmasking the True Price of “Energy Takes Everything”
I’ve had to pattern my life after my condition instead of pushing through like the rest of the world celebrates doing.
And some days, that still feels like failure. Even though I know it isn’t.
I’ve found a rhythm that works for me.
And I want to be confident in it.
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
— Confucius
But here’s the part people don’t see:
Everything takes energy.
Take the feelings you have at the very end of a long day:
Hard to find something to eat because every step feels heavy. Hard to have patience for the people in your space. Hard to think creatively or problem-solve.
Normally, you’d say: I just need a good night’s sleep. Then I will be myself again.
But when that good night’s sleep never comes. Neither does the motivation, the emotional regulation, or the clarity to solve even the smallest dilemmas.
And those complications build… and build… and build.
Then there’s the big life stuff I feel like I will never be able to address when I am always dealing with constant minor emergencies. A migraine. A vertebrae stuck out. Spasms.
What’s my purpose? How do I set priorities? How do I live well in this body? How do I figure it all out when my brain just wants to sleep?
Sometimes I end up spinning in a washing machine of choices that made sense in the moment:
Made sense in the moment: “I have to eat well.” I go get groceries. Get home. Collapse. Can’t get back up. Order pizza (the dirty laundry I get stuck in a spin cycle with).
Made sense in the moment: “I have to practice self-care.” I gather everything. Run the bath. Lay down… and don’t have the energy to actually do the care. Back to bed (the dirty sheets I get tangled up in).
Made sense in the moment: “I have to take care of myself.” Someone needs help. I don’t respond. Then guilt rushes in and it steals what little peace I had left. (those laundry items that always pass on a grease stain, no matter how many times its been washed)
So I’ve learned to live differently.
My rhythm now is:
rest
spiritual study
learning
creating
easy self-care
easy and somewhat healthy meals
visiting like-minded souls
serving where I can
protecting my peace
Nothing is set in stone.
Nothing is required.
It’s simply what works for me
My story of ME
It seems easy. I’m tired. I should sleep. But sleep doesn’t help. I just go between varying types of tired.
Nerves are easily triggered with this condition. So bringing the vibrating down and the peace level up is critical.
I enjoy baths. They initiate a truce with my body. Where the pain subsides. I can lay suspended and liberated.
When I am in need of one of these sessions I lay in bed and think about how wonderful it would feel.
Often I don’t have the strength to begin. To gather myself and my stuff. To stand while the tub starts to fill. To change temperatures by changing rooms. To rise and remember all the places in my body that are not aligned.
It all becomes too much. And the fabulous results are lost in the desire to conserve what little energy I have.
Your pace is not a moral issue.
— Devon Price
What the Science Says and Why the Forest Helps
As a forest therapy guide, I’ve seen again and again how nature meets people where their bodies are not where culture thinks they should be.
ME–CFS involves:
dysregulation of the nervous system
chronic inflammation
impaired cellular energy production (mitochondrial dysfunction)
heightened sensitivity to sensory input
post-exertional malaise, where even small effort leads to disproportionate crashes
This means the body is stuck in a protective mode, constantly conserving resources.
And here’s where the forest becomes more than beautiful scenery. It becomes medicine.
Nature’s Recharge: Forest Therapy’s Cure for ME–CFS and Exhaustion
1. Calms the nervous system
Time in natural environments lowers cortisol and shifts the body from “fight-or-flight” into “rest-and-digest.” For someone whose system is always on high alert, this is profound relief.
2. Reduces inflammation
Phytoncides, which are natural compounds released by trees, have been shown to support immune balance and reduce markers of inflammation. The body doesn’t have to work as hard to regulate itself.
3. Restores attention without effort
Nature offers soft fascination. A gentle sensory input that allows the brain to rest while still being engaged. This is vital when cognitive fatigue makes any thinking feel heavy.
4. Reframes worth and productivity
In the forest, you don’t have to prove anything. Trees don’t rush. Streams don’t apologize for slowing down. The environment itself models a different definition of enough.
For those of us living with ME–CFS, the forest reminds us:
We are not broken machines. We are living beings adapting to different conditions.
Embracing Serenity: Forest Therapy for ME–CFS & Deep Fatigue
This practice is designed for very low energy days. No hiking. No goals. No fixing.
The “Enough as I Am” Practice
Time: 10–20 minutes (or less)
Place: A bench, porch, backyard, park, or even near an open window
Arrive without performing
Sit or lie in a comfortable position
Let your body choose
Let one sense lead. Instead of scanning everything, pick just one: listening to birds or wind feeling air on your skin noticing light through leaves
Breathe like the trees. Inhale slowly. Exhale even slower.
Imagine your breath moving at the pace of a growing branch (not a ticking clock)
Offer yourself one true sentence. Silently say: “In this moment, I am doing enough.”
Leave before you’re tired. Ending early is not failure. It is wisdom.
There is a difference between resting and quitting. One restores you. The other abandons you.
Living with ME–CFS has taught me that strength doesn’t always look like endurance.
Sometimes strength looks like:
stopping early
saying no gently
choosing peace over productivity
letting the forest hold what I can’t
I am not lazy.
I am not weak.
I am not failing.
I am adapting.
Your best is what you can do without harming your physical or mental health. Not what you can accomplish when you disregard it.
-Unknown
And in the quiet wisdom of trees, I’ve learned something the world forgot to teach.
A life lived slowly is not a life lived small. Sometimes, it is the bravest life of all.
Us on New Year’s Eve before getting too tired and heading home around 10:00. Usually we are the people that when asked if we want to get together at 8:00 we wonder am?!? or pm?!? Actually never mind, both are a hard pass.
Happy New Year! To all those suffering, you are not alone, your worth is not diminished by your ability, you are seen and welcomed here.
SUNBEAM ACRES 