Dear Bookish Besties,

…sometimes life doesn’t hand you the lemons gently.

Sometimes the lemons get yeeted through your front door by a catapult and they’re all shouting, “SURPRISE!”

Let’s review the chaos, shall we?

• flooded basement apartment because of dead sump pump (RIP) plus heavy rain and melted snow/ice
• squishy carpet
• the lingering smell of mildew and regret
• diaries and journals some of which dating back to 2003? Saturated
• one damaged library book worth a small fortune
• other things I definitely had to throw out bc gross

Okay, but like on the real? I need to talk about those diaries for a second. These were not random notebooks. These were archives. Junior year of high school angst. Grief. Growth. Bad poetry. Better poetry. The evolution of my handwriting. (Why did 16 year old me decide writing super tiny was the way to go?)

My entire coming-of-age series, waterlogged like someone somewhere said, “Let’s test her resilience.”

Add in teaching a classroom that decided to audition for Survivor: Elementary Edition. (Refusing to work. Dramatic exits. Sudden alliances. Sudden betrayals. And kids eyeing me like they’re about to vote me off the island.)

Then the hobbies slump hit.

It’s wild how quickly life can knock you flat.

BUT….

Here’s the thing.

You’re allowed to sit in your valley of feelings.

You’re allowed to feel annoyed.
To feel tired.
To feel like you’re getting personally hazed.

You just can’t build a house there.

You can’t unpack and start decorating the pity apartment.

At some point, you have to clock the f*** back in.

Stand up.
Wring the water out.
Open a window (or several).

The Small Wins (aka The Lemonade)

Today I did three tiny, powerful things.

• got Rita’s and found out they have a gummy bear flavor (gummy bears are the best candy out there and no one can tell me different)
• went to the library to confess about the water damaged book…and walked out with 5 more. I’m 20 pages deep in a thriller so goodbye reading slump.
• am making plans to see a Broadway show with my bestie

Now, are these things groundbreaking in the sense of winning the lottery?

No, but…

Even when things feel heavy, I’m still planning joy.

And that’s resilience.

What I Learned This Week

Resilience is not loud.

It’s not a motivational speech or a TED talk.

It’s:

Getting up.
Going to work.
Buying the gummy bear flavored water ice.
Planning something to look forward to.
Writing this post.

It’s understanding that you can lose pieces of your past and still carry every lesson forward. Because I might have lost the paper, but I didn’t lose the girl embedded in those pages.

It’s realizing that even when life floods your basement, you’re still standing in the doorway with a shop vac and a plan.

So yeah, life threw me lemons.

But I guess I did make lemonade.

It just came with gummy bears.

And honestly?

That feels very on brand.