I’m sitting here, two kids way past done with potty training, and I’m crying over diapers.

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“Walk with me,” she said.

This is such a weird time. Social What?? Sheltering-in-Place? No TP left? Hand sanitizer a thing of the past? Everything is closed?

Guess what? Not all is lost.

Once upon a time, I was at work and had to pee.

I’ve been trying to spend less time on social media lately since I have other responsibilities which are more important, and social media for me is a time vampire. I usually start perusing my feed under the guise of checking up on my friends around the country and their various children, artistic endeavors, and funny memes and gifs, but inevitably I end up spending way too much time scrolling my feed and getting nothing meaningful accomplished. What if…

I was sitting at a table with a handful of women, most of them brand-new acquaintances to me as of that morning. The goal was to eat breakfast together and while doing so, go around the table and ask and answer a few, previously chosen questions in the quest to learn more about each other and become better acquainted.

The last couple of weeks have been stressful, to say the least, but they culminated in realizing today that my husband and I missed an important event which occurred this morning.

Let’s go over a few definitions together:

Justice is righteousness. Righteousness is freedom. Freedom is liberation.

Darkness is absence of light. Light allows vision. Darkness is blindness.

Hatred is hostility and avoidance. Love is attachment and devotion. Hatred and love cannot coexist. Avoidance and attachment are opposites.

Devotion is dedication to a cause. A cause necessitates action.

Are there any train lovers out there? Specifically, are there any tunnel lovers out there? I absolutely love tunnels. I love everything about them – their darkness, cave-like qualities, echoes, and the fact that almost always, there is literally a light at the end. I have driven through tunnels dug into mountains, giant underground tunnels carrying foot and automobile traffic underneath large cities, and I have walked through tunnels underneath streets and carved into the trunks of giant redwoods in California. The whole concept of tunnels and their different types fascinates me. Plus, echoes, amiright?

I wrote this letter a couple months prior to having my second child.

My precious children,

Life is full of choices. Things do not happen for an unknown reason. Things happen because of our decisions—not because of luck, and not because you or anyone else is entitled to anything. You can only control your own choices, not those of others. Good things are earned and should be celebrated; they happen as a result of hard work, determination, and perseverance. Perfection is impossible; excellence is not. Bad things happen, but even then, life is still good and lessons can be learned.