Right now, I am doing my best, but I am struggling mentally. Recently, someone asked me if I was okay and for once, I didn’t smile or laugh it off to avoid them from worrying about me.

I told the truth, as I rarely do. Because I am not okay. My family’s health right now is sending me into a spiral of flashbacks to years prior, when I lost my great-grandmother. This past week alone was an epidemic of four -F O U R – different family members ending up in the hospital, topped with me not feeling appreciated in my role at work, not feeling listened to in relationships, and my seasonal depression/loneliness, where I miss my friends but I feel as if that is only one-sided.

I was asked – are you taking on too much? Working full time, being a student full time, a mom full time – please, schoolwork is at my own pace (which has been a little slow lately as I obsess over this paper), and every second I spend with my daughter is a gift. I love my job, but right now I feel like it does not love me.

I think I thrive in chaos; if I didn’t have this set schedule of work, school, mom, and self-care, I would not be as sane as I am.

This is just a bump in the road that I am learning to overcome by standing up for myself, not backing down, pushing through, and leaning on my faith and the people who love me during a trying time.

Right now, I’m typing this from my grandparents’ couch, half-watching the Michigan State vs. Michigan University football game (Go Green, currently 12-0… I hear my mom crying from 5 miles down the road) and editing and re-editing my paper to try to perfect it. All this after a long day at the hospital visiting my grandmother and trying not to cry when she held tight to my daughter and said, “I’m not missing her birthday party; she only has one first birthday,” despite her doctor’s informing us that she has 6-8 weeks of continued IV antibiotics under direct supervision.

Life. Is. Hard. I’m struggling to find positivity…. But at least I’m trying. If anyone is out there reading this, send love and prayers to my family. I need to go to sleep; the longer I stare at this screen, the more my age is showing. I think I actually have to commit to wearing my glasses more often or just hope that the slightly blurry letters I am typing make any sense, oops.