I found myself feeling anxious last night and this morning – that kind of uncomfortable feeling like if I’d had way too much coffee, or couldn’t quite calm down. It was a bit unnerving. No amount of deep yoga breaths could soothe me. I thought “What can possibly be wrong with my body NOW?”

I felt still on edge as I drove around running errands this morning. As I was headed home, I put on Adele’s new song “Hello.” The lyrics struck a nerve. Perhaps it is the striking first line of the refrain: “Hello from the other side.” I started sobbing in the car. But I found that something else happened: that anxious feeling subsided. The combination of the music and crying calmed me.

This week has been in and out. A card received in the mail. A phone call from someone who wanted to let me know of a pregnancy in the family outside of a group setting, giving me an opportunity to be both happy for them and pained in the same moment. Small acts that make me grateful for the people in my life. I finally worked up the courage to read Tear Soup, recommended by a friend of mine. I was reading to myself on the couch, but both kids came over and climbed into my lap, wanting me to read aloud. As I reached the end, I choked on the words and couldn’t speak them aloud. “Some days when you’re making tear soup i’s even hard to breathe. Some days you feel like running away. You just hope a better day comes along soon. And then comes one of the hardest parts of making tear soup. It’s when you decide it may be okay to eat something instead of soup all the time.”And This. The photo my sister sent me, when she visited the tree last weekend. I almost called it “Nelle’s tree” but it isn’t only hers; it is the resting place of my grandfather too.