Brave and Committed
Feliz 2022.
My words for this year are brave and committed. And so far, January has been very generous with opportunities to practice both.
Despite working so diligently for almost two years to avoid covid, the virus made its way into our family of five earlier this month. My daughter was the first to get sick, complaining of body aches and fatigue, followed by intense fever, and then several days of rest and recovery.
I felt relieved and somewhat victorious when the results from her first rapid test were negative. “It’s probably the flu,” I thought. But a positive test taken a couple of days later brought me face to face with the reality that covid would be coming for the rest of us. And it did.
One by one, we each felt the various symptoms: headache, fatigue, dizziness, throat irritation, and cough. Nothing brings out my mom superpowers like caring for my kids when they are sick. In the last twelve days, my daily to-dos have multiplied to include preparing soups, teas, and salt baths along with physical and emotional check-ins, curbside grocery pick-ups, testing, and more. While we are not all out of the woods yet, I am grateful that we have been able to treat our symptoms at home and we have each made significant progress.
I am also grateful for the ways I have learned to care for myself when life gets disruptive. When life reminds me that our internal and external environments are always changing and resilience requires adaptability.
Honoring my body’s cues for rest and restoration rather than pushing against them is something I have learned after years of physical burnout. Accepting support from my circle of friends and family is something I am less skilled at, but gradually learning after years of emotional depletion. Filling and emptying my creative cup amidst chaos and uncertainty is something I have learned after years of energetic stagnation.
Writing is one way I fill and empty my creative cup. I write to process life, to understand the complexities of being human, to give an external voice and form to my internal world, to heal, and to be a conduit for the untold stories of my ancestors to flow through me. Writing is both my medicine and my offering.
I didn’t plan for my first blog post of the year to be about covid (my ego is still struggling with it). But after spinning my wheels trying to write about anything other than this, my eyes looked up from my laptop and landed on the post-it with my words for 2022. Brave and committed.
I will be brave every day this year and I am committed to showing up authentically as a whole person in every space I get to be in. Today this looks like speaking from my heart, not my planner. Today this looks like letting go of perfection and embracing raw experience. Today being brave and committed looks like unfiltered visibility and yes, writing about covid.
Why? Because this is my current reality and the current reality of many mujeres I know who are taking on extra responsibilities, caring for their families, adapting to their changing environments, and being brave in the face of this pandemic. To suppress or bypass the stories of what we have been through, what we are still going through, feels like erasure. And in my commitment to wholeness, I say “No más” to that.
