Hi.

I am often struck by how lucky I am to have friends with truly kind hearts. Yes, I’ve had my share of being fooled by some people, and taken advantage of now and then, but my inner circle of friends have been remarkably kind (as you can tell, since I am “remarking” on it right now!). I tend to have only a few close friends at a time, but they have always been honest and caring, eager to be supportive and happy to be involved with whatever ridiculous idea I come up with. I am so grateful for the love and laughter we have shared throughout the years.

One of my very best friends, however, never laughed once. In fact, he didn’t even speak. Ever. Yet he was right by my side, helping as best he could, during the scariest night of my life.

I remember the day I brought Alia home from the hospital. We had been in the NICU for 92 days and fortunately, she had gotten strong and healthy enough to come home on her expected due date, December 12, 2011; exactly “on time”. I had such a confusing mixture of feelings as the medical team disconnected the various wires and monitors she had been hooked up to for the past three months. Just the day before, she had breathing episodes that set off the alarms, but today, they told me she was ready to come home.

I was terrified. It seemed surreal and outright reckless for this group of the most highly trained nurses in the country to simply hand over an infant to someone without any medical training at all and only a 30-minute video of infant CPR to refer to if something went wrong. Even as they were demonstrating on the doll what to do, my mind was reeling at the prospect that my daughter might need CPR in the first place. I learned nothing. In fact, I almost needed CPR myself just watching them.

Regardless, they checked us out, which was also confusing. I hated going to the hospital every day to see my daughter. Really, really hated it. But now that they were packing up our stuff and walking us to the door, I was reluctant to go. Is she really okay? What if she stops breathing while I’m driving her home? Why am I suddenly furious with myself for not going to medical school?!

A hospital staff person waited with her while I got my car and drove to the entrance. I put her in her car seat, and as I pulled away, I decided 12 mph was fast enough. I watched her in the rearview mirror as I drove, aware of everything at once. (It took years for me to manage the hyper-vigilance I developed as a response to our time in the NICU.) Eventually, we got home safe and sound.

And my friend was waiting for us right at the door, tail wagging, eager to welcome us home. A mix of Black Lab and Catahoula Leopard Dog, Shadow was a rescue dog with a mottled brown, black and white coat punctuated by a gorgeous glossy black stripe down his back. He had a double coat of fur, so petting him was like petting a (50-pound) bunny. I had adopted him when he was a year and a half old, and he came with his own set of challenges. But those are stories for another day. This day, he was my knight in shining armor. I almost cried at how “normal” he made it all feel – the two of us coming home at the end of the day, greeted by our dog. Hooray, we made it!!! We’re finally, finally home.

I changed and bundled Alia as I was taught, got everything ready for her next feeding, and then watched over her as she slept. Intensely. I couldn’t help it. My little girl—still such a new idea, having a daughter. And only just now feeling like maybe I really would get to keep her, that she would stay in this world, with me.

We had beaten the odds. She was home sleeping peacefully, and didn’t need any special equipment or medication. But it was up to me to keep her safe, to keep her healthy…to keep her breathing. And so I stood over her, listening to every breath and counting in between to make sure they were regular. My heart was pounding like I was being chased. I started to panic. I had been up most of the previous night and then on high alert all day at the hospital, and now it was two in the morning, and my pulse was racing; my chest felt so tight I couldn’t breathe. How could I possibly match the round-the-clock care she received at the hospital?

I stepped back and felt something soft brush against my arm. It was Shadow. He was sitting next to me, nearly rigid at attention, watching over Alia as well. A friend in deed. I no longer felt anxious (just very, very alert!). And so the two of us stayed there throughout the night. Watching. Intensely.

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I’m sharing this story in case you have friends going through a challenging experience. You might feel unsure or even uncomfortable about what to do to support them. Please keep in mind how powerful the simplest acts of kindness truly are. I used to dismiss that popular quote by Woody Allen, “ninety percent of life is just showing up.” I felt it fell short; I wanted to provide something more substantial for a friend in need. But Shadow taught me better. He did not need to know the right words to say. He didn’t have flowers or comfort food or even a card. He showed up, fully present, choosing to join me in a scary experience, and it made all the difference in the world.

Hi!

I love the potential of journals and notebooks—a treasury for favorite jokes or ideas from books or even my own thoughts. I always feel excited by how wise I will become when I start writing stuff down, and through that process, find meaning to the hodgepodge of interactions and surprises of each day. Then I get home, take off my coat, and promptly forget about future enlightenment. Maybe I’m hungry or the mail came or it’s Thursday…who knows. Suffice it to say that although I have had the intention of keeping a daily journal for, well, ever, I have managed to do so exactly once, on a trip that lasted two weeks.

But great news – I found a loophole! I am going to count this blog as a journal and voila! I am now keeping a journal. Thank you to everyone reading this post for keeping me accountable. I hope you find any insights I gain along the way helpful to your own journey.

Why am I talking about journaling? Well, I just found one of my notebooks from a long time ago. It was mostly blank, but as I flipped through the pages to check, I found this:

Not all goals are important to achieve. It’s who you become while trying to achieve them that’s important.

I love this idea. When I read it, I felt…happy. The strain of trying to achieve something hard, even when it’s something I really want, can feel discouraging. Maybe especially when it’s something I really want. Instead of feeling excited by chasing the challenge, I often feel like I’m pedaling with the brakes on. In those rare moments of self-awareness, I realize the brakes are my own making: self-criticism and unrealistic expectations.

So for me, this perspective is freeing. I can pursue ongoing aspirations like “Be kind. Always.” and not end each day feeling like a failure because there were moments when I wasn’t, when I felt frustrated or impatient or more likely, both.

The idea that some goals don’t have to be attainable is basically another way of saying it’s not the destination it’s the journey. But I always feel uncomfortable when someone cites the journey adage. The destination is important—isn’t it? That’s why I picked it! I like this way of thinking about it much better. I feel like I’ve been given license to set idealistic goals and the reward is simply making a genuine effort, regardless of the outcome.

For folks who enjoy enriching their intuition with the context of science, I found this neat fact: a study by Gail Matthews at Dominican University revealed that people who wrote down their goals and dreams on a regular basis were 42% more likely to achieve them than those who didn’t. Of course, there are different ways of writing down your goals (S.M.A.R.T, S.M.A.R.T.E.R, etc.), so one could argue about the percentage, but the results of this study seem aligned with what I’m talking about. Writing down a goal—even if you don’t look at it again—sets the intention.

If the intention is the destination, well, now I have a map for getting there. I am at X, my goal is at Y, and however many times I have to double-back and start again, take detours, or miss the endpoint entirely, the terrain I’ve travelled is meaningful and important for who I want to become. For idealistic goals like being kind (always) or feeling happy (most of the time), I am encouraged by the idea that the aspiration is the accomplishment. Seems obvious, but I often forget.

If you’ve been struggling to achieve an idealistic goal, maybe keeping this idea in mind will inspire you to feel more positive about pursuing it. I hope so!

Hi. Welcome to my very first blog post!

My name is Edna. Six and a half years ago, I started looking for a site that offered people dealing with any kind of challenge some inspiration and encouragement.

My challenge was that I was single and a soon-to-be mom, facing something that was scary and overwhelming: my water had just broken, but I was only 24 weeks pregnant. I wanted to gain insights and maybe even laugh a little as I learned better ways of coping with uncertainty and stress.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time. Soon after I started searching for this magical site, I went into labor and gave birth to a little girl who was three months premature and weighed less than 2 pounds. Suddenly, my life had changed so completely and acutely there was no time for reading; there was no time for anything.

This is what I heard when I regained consciousness from the emergency c-section: “The prognosis for your daughter is grim. We recommend you enjoy whatever time you have with her.” The nurse clearly did not want to be the one telling me this. She actually ran away after giving me the news, I think terrified I might ask her what she meant.

I knew what she meant of course. But not right away. First there was a moment when the external world went blank. It got so quiet I could almost hear my soul surrender to this awful, yet unavoidable truth.

And then it was over. I blinked and the world came back into view. I felt the tubing taped to my arm, saw monitors blinking and nurses taking notes, and I understood that life as I knew it had ended. A new life, unknown and unknowable, had begun.

Fast forward to today, April 17 – my birthday! Thankfully, the doctors were wrong. There is nothing “grim” about my daughter. I named her Alia, which means “gift from G-d” because that’s exactly what she is. Bringing her into the world is by far the most important and meaningful thing I have ever done. She is my pride and joy. It hasn’t been easy though. (Is there a family on the planet that can say raising children is?!)

My daughter brings a unique set of challenges with her, but I decided to share our story because it feels like everyone’s story—it’s about the human spirit. In my case, the hero is the underdog of all underdogs, starting out life too soon but fortunately too stubborn to accept the risks related to that. I watched as she struggled second by second to breathe, impressed beyond words by her full-body focus on the effort. For 92 days, I witnessed the elemental drive to survive, and it changed my life.

Since those days in the NICU when my daughter’s most frequent visitor besides me was the hospital’s chaplain who came to pray for her (thank you!), we have gone through our share of challenges, achievements, insights and miracles. Some are silly and some distressing, but each experience has pushed me to a richer understanding of our life and how to better enjoy it. And I realize that’s what I was looking for in the first place.

So I am starting this blog as a way to encourage others to continue feeling hope for a better future, in spite of the setbacks you encounter along the way. I look forward to sharing our story with you. Some days were tough, that’s for sure. Like the day after my daughter was born, when my boss sent me an email saying there was no place on her team for a single mom with a sick baby. But some days were profoundly rewarding, like finding a new job and going on to raise millions of dollars for a wonderful cause.

There are people we met along the way who gave me a chance and more importantly, believed in my daughter; and there were those with smaller agendas, blind to the potential standing in front of them. For lack of a better strategy, I clung to my hope for a better future for both of us, and we are living that future right now. Alia is a beautiful little girl, ready to change the world with her creativity and her charisma. To this day, I hold in my mind (desperately? fiercely?) a space for my daughter to thrive. Our friends and family live in this space, and I invite you to join us. It works!

Let’s help each other. I will write about what we’ve been through with the hope that the more of our story you learn, the more confident you feel about tackling your own challenges. I love quotes and have collected many to boost my spirit, so I’ll sprinkle some in along the way. I also used to be a dj, so you can expect some lists of feel-good songs, too. Please write to me and let me know what you think of my posts. I look forward to hearing from you!