Sometimes in life you have to be strong to get through the stuff in front of you to get to the good stuff ahead. Even when that means it feels as if everything around you is burning to the ground and you feel like you’re barely keeping your head above water, if at all. Treading water is exhausting. Trying not to drown while still trying to swim through everything life keeps throwing at you like some massive obstacle course or challenge that you know will make you stronger even when in the short term all it feels like is that you’re getting hit from all sides and barely have time to breathe.

Sometimes in life, you start to realize you don’t have to do it all alone. It’s okay to ask for help. To stay up late to be there for others. To call someone just to say, I needed to hear your voice right now. To work a little longer. Try a little harder. Breathe a little differently. Just to make things come together even when it feels like the universe keeps throwing storm after storm your way until the big one rolls in and everything comes to a head.

Because you know what? On the other side of that massive storm is daybreak. And better days ahead.

I fell asleep before midnight, collapsed in exhaustion after a long day on the heels of a long day, followed by another long day strung together like a series of life challenges coming after you wave after wave after wave crashing over you pulling you out to sea only to realize things will settle, and you will wash ashore.

I sat on the front porch in the late night cover of snow listening as the snowflakes changed over to ice pinging against the steps. The soft white velvet blanket took on a silvery sheen under the pale light shining from the garage across the empty driveway and I wondered what tomorrow would bring.

Tomorrow is almost here. And the tomorrow after that is close behind. Sometimes when everything is on fire, you realize that it all has to burn down before the snow can blanket the earth in its soft comforting magic to remind you that where you are now is not where you were meant to always be.

Life is about change. Growing to become better. Learn more. Evolve. Adapt. And, through it all continuously seeking your True North.

The street is blanketed in cottony white, untouched by plows or salt at this early morning hour and it looks as if this mountain will remain untouched – at least for now – offering solace from the world down below. I listened to the wind rolling up through the hills, swaying the trees as the gradual change from snow to ice resonated differently across the landscape making a soft almost musical pinging sound as if nature was singing its own song to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen. I’m reminded of the story of The Piazza, the fairy cabin up on the mountain hidden in the woods under a blanket of snow and ice and sunlight that hasn’t yet come today.

Things will get better. That’s why we’re working so hard right now to get through this. Not just to survive, make ends meet, and go through the motions day after day, but to move forward to the magic that’s outside, the wonder that’s ahead, and all of the amazing things to come.

Life’s challenges make us better, stronger, and help us grow. Without storms to overcome, life would be flat and the flatness of surviving is a stark contrast to really living. Even when the night steals my sleep and I sit here listening to the snow fall outside mixed with ice against the windowpane, I know that eventually I will sleep and everything will be okay.