“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”

It’s late and the last day of several where I had to keep stepping up to my dream despite my flagging energy and an encroaching virus that would cripple me with choking fits at a whim. The day you break your booth down is the most challenging of all, because it is at the close of three long days: days that each consumed the energy of three days each. It was an easy time for me to bear witness to a thought by Friedrich Nietzsche, “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.” Exhaustion took hold of my mind and spirit and even though everything that could have gone right did, I still found myself questioning everything.

The great news is that on Day 74, I was able to catch it early and not slide down the slippery slope of negative thinking. Instead I contented myself with feeling the depth of my exhaustion and consoled myself with the promise of sequestering myself to my bedroom until the coughing fits end as soon as I get home. I still don’t understand what life is trying to teach me, with my body not strong enough to contain the potential and goodness that I have so long worked for. I know that the wisdom of this body reigns, so I won’t question it. I will rest.

The beginning of the rejuvenation happened with the sweetest evening massage at Pasadena’s Heart and Sole, where the studied fingers released tension built into my skull for weeks. I wish I were close enough to fill up their buy ten, get one free card… I could have spent hours with those agile fingers massaging my head into stillness. Interesting connection between being able to take a deep breath and coughing fits I find. Quiet release is enough; it’s always enough.