Do the thing you love. Connect with the people you love.
Put these things at the top of your To Do List every day, color-coded an urgent red or sunny yellow or peaceful sea-green. This is what life is made of, and it’s more important than any “urgent” thing on your list. A day when you can’t spend an hour on your art or ten focused minutes talking to your teen isn’t a “too busy” day, it’s a tragedy. Not the kind that should guilt you or shame you, but the kind that spurs an urgency deep inside you to make them happen tomorrow.
I haven’t been able to write (the thing I love) in more than a week, and it feels a little like dying. But I’ve doubled down on connection, and that’s kept me going. The young doctor-intern who was shadowing my physician got a few extra smiles from me for his eager pursuit of his own Thing He Loves. The tiny, super-curious girl and her heroically patient parents at the Panera became my best-friends-for-a-moment. I agreed with the girl that the bugs outside the window were a wonder (as was she). And I told the parents they were doing fabulous, just as they should, and that their daughter was pure awesome. Because I remember being a young parent and how an affirmation from an older-and-been-there parent could make my day.
Today I’ll write. And connect. And not forget that all that includes connecting with *myself* in a healing and gentle way, one where I dig a little deeper and mine more of who I am… then dare to be vulnerable and share it with the world, one person at a time.