Today was kind of a chaotic day, and by chaotic, mostly I mean busy.

Our HVAC install began at last (Merry Christmas to us!), so by tomorrow we should have a heated house once again. They arrived as I was getting Danny’s lunch together (pick up hangry toddler so he can’t create chaos elsewhere, answer door, hear intro talk from HVAC folks, direct them to HVAC stuff, go back to lunch making, new HVAC person arrives, repeat…), and they really started making all the noise right as Danny went down for his nap (miraculously, he managed an hour of sleep!). The folks finished for the day as we were sitting down to supper, and then I helped them jump their truck battery as Micah started Danny’s bath. Nothing about today was bad, it was just a constant juggle, and that wears me out.

Grief season has worn me out, too, as has the constant swirl of hard news from Gaza, and the tough stuff in the lives of the ones I love most. I have no solutions, no easy answers but to somehow love and keep on loving. It seems that’s how the Prince of Peace would manage.

And tonight I’m also throwing in gratitude to help my own little insides find some rest. There is something about naming the things/people/realities I’m thankful for that literally allows me to exhale, to release the breath I’ve been holding while I worry about all the hard things. My body-mind-spirit self needs that exhale to keep going, so tonight I’m taking a few minutes to write down those bright spots. We need the light in this coming week—the darkest of the year before Winter Solstice and the coming Light.

I’m thankful for all of you. We’re meant to do this life and the one to come together, I think. There is no other way worth imagining. May we be people who pause to say thank you and then, people who keep on loving.