If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...” the answer’s NO and The Uplifters will prove it to you. This space is for purpose-driven women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives.
Last week was a lot.
We went to two funerals that dredged up surprising new layers of grief over losing my grandmother last year. We moved our firstborn off to college. We celebrated my mother’s 75th birthday. My brother’s neighborhood in Kauai got pummeled by a storm that swept away so many of his belongings, and then we held our breath as the forest near his house went up in flames four days later. The chapter I was working on for my book felt like an indecipherable puzzle. Meanwhile, the regular things like work and cooking and cleaning kept going, and I expected myself to keep tending them as though nothing else was happening.
So many friends and clients are carrying a lot at once right now too. Broken bones, fractured relationships, disrupted careers, moving homes- all of it, all at once. Shouldn’t there be an agreed limit to how much one person can manage at once?
Maybe you’ve got a lot happening at once now too?
We’ve managed lots before, haven’t we? And we’ve survived it, so you’d think we’d glide on through this lot too, huh? And yet, we forget that we have to remind ourselves of these lessons every time we enter a new obstacle course.
We know what works: Remembering that we have survived hard patches before and that we’ll get through this one. Making room for mistakes, because they’re gonna happen. Letting the small stuff slide, because times like these remind us what really matters. Trusting that the things that aren’t top priority now will wait (or they won’t and probably weren’t actually that important anyway).
All of that is true. All of it helps.
But today? Let’s find some delight.
Not once things calm down. Right now, in the middle of it, while a ray of sun is shining on the plant that is still alive, even though we keep forgetting to water it.
Research shows that small moments of genuine positive emotion help us move through hard stuff faster. Today, for me, that looked like putting on a pretty dress with red lipstick and my favorite earrings, for no reason at all except that it made me feel brave.
That’s enough.
xo, Aransas
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