This one's for you.

(My desk. A little bit shabby, a little bit florally, and a little bit FUBARy.)

I'm writing this for you. Yes you. Don’t look so surprised. This one is for you. To read and take from it what helps. To take from it what gives you strength. To take from it what ever you will that makes this day easier. Or the next, or the many nexts to come.

You’re here. Right here. Right now. Reading. In the midst of the storm. In the midst of the pain, or the worry. In the pause. The as well as possible day. The day which fluctuates from good to bad and back again. You are here and you are doing this. You are reading the words that are meant for you.

You made it through today. And yesterday and all the days before. Even when you thought you couldn't, you did. You did it after the tears. You did it after the pain. The despair. The fear. The lost ways and foreign paths. You did it.

You thought you couldn't and yet here you are.

Reading.

Breathing.

Sitting.

Lying.

Here.

You think you’re not strong enough and yet you've faced each day. You watched the minutes tick over. They stretched out, slowed by pain, by nausea and exhaustion. Slowing further as you sat and waited listening for the next tick, the next number to flip over. A tangible something to tell you that time is moving. That the quicksand is a trick of the body and the mind. Until you could finally say, “This day is done”. And life begins anew. There's a chance. A possibility. A hope.

You are up and you are going when the days and the weeks and the months and the years have tried to beat you down. You are tough. Tougher than you could ever have imagined before the change.

Bodies break. Genes turn on. Circumstances collide. And life becomes hard.

You've climbed mountains and forged wild rivers created by bodies and systems and life. You've made it through all of them.

When the voice said “No”. “No more.” “It’s not fair.” “I can’t do this.” You found the path. It was different each time. Shifted left and right. Twisted and split. Sometimes you didn't even know you’d found it until after the fact. You were there, and then you were here. The path was traversed while you were busy contending with the storm.

And here you are. Today. Right here. Right now.

These words are for you. To remind you of your abilities. Of your strength. Of you. To remind you of all you've achieved, in all the days up until right now when you read these words. To know that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Your behaviour. That got you to here. You. No one else. You made it. And you’ll make it again. And all the agains.

These words are for you.

Michelle

'Cause I only have one second, this minute today

I can't press rewind and turn it back and call it now

And so this moment, I just have to sing out loud

And say I love I like and breathe in now

And say I love I live and breathe in now