You are allowed to be sad.

To feel stagnant when the weather grows heavy, dark and dull.

To feel the weight of your body, of your heart settling down into an undernourished soul.

The persistent sound of your breath hammering, “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” I must. I must. I must.

The moments where you fear you are burdening your children with the heaviness of your spirit.

You’d rather protect them from a world that presses down on undeserving shoulders by not feeling the weight of it yourself.

But you are here.

In this place that feels wrong for your presence. In this place that smells of death.

The folded corners of the leaves that rest against the once colorful ground feel they leach the world of the colors of joy.

But they are holding on.

Their tiny deaths covering the small buried seed, feeding the littlest insects. So when the seasons change,

they can grow again.

Allow the insulation of your spirit as well. Hold yourself in this space. Speak words to yourself as a mother would to her child. Trust in the impermanence of this place. It will arrive and depart as the ocean tides, unmarred by the intention of those of sail it.