Hey {{First Name | there}},

Two weeks ago, I started getting sick. It's been a journey to some part of hell and back, but I've learned a lot from it.

I'm writing today as medicine. Not work. It is in my nature to observe, reflect, and share.

I’ve been feeling the thoughts and words build pressure in my head the past couple of days. Like a storm cloud in nature, I know the relief is in letting them flow out. So here we go.

For many days over the two weeks, I was alone in a dark room with my pain.

No light. Very little sound. Not much contact with the people I love. My body had stopped cooperating and the doctors kept sending me home without answers. The medicine wasn't working. I couldn't tell if this was going to get better or whether this was just, now, my life.

My mind went to some very dark places. When there is nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait and hurt, the mind does what minds do in the absence of light. It catastrophizes. It loops. It asks questions that have no answers and then asks them again.

I was afraid. I was stuck in a pain loop I couldn't think my way out of.

And somewhere in that dark, a thought arrived. Small and distant, like a porch light seen from a long way off.

If my body and mind are capable of holding this much pain, this much darkness, then the opposite must also be true. I am equally capable of holding extreme joy. Extreme well-being. Extreme connectedness. And maybe this capacity, to stay with hard things, to not leave myself, will someday let me stay with the beautiful things longer and more fully, too.

I held onto that. It was enough to hold onto.

I'll spare you the full medical timeline for now. Though I’ll likely share what I learned about what it means to advocate for your own body when the people in authority have made up their minds at some point. What I'll tell you is that by the time I received a diagnosis, I had made four ER visits, had a spinal tap, multiple MRIs, many blood tests, a CT scan, x-rays, and had been told by a doctor, while half my face was fully paralyzed, that there was probably nothing more they could do for me.

I have a diagnosis now. Acute Lyme disease. I have a treatment plan and a recovery timeline that is longer and more uncertain than I would like. My face is still paralyzed. My right arm and leg are still weak. Mashing an avocado this morning was hard work. Typing this is tiring.

But I'm here. And I want to tell you what happened around me while I was in that dark room.

I had no idea the love and support that surrounded me.

I have been loved like this my whole life, probably. But I didn't know it until I needed it. Until I had nothing to offer back. Until I was just a person in a dark room who needed someone to sit with her.

And they came. In so many small ways and big ways, love paved the way out of the pain.

My three-year-old climbed into bed and sat, leaning against my legs, quietly eating crackers. I didn’t know he could be so quiet. My husband lay down beside me and something in me unknotted enough to eat my first real meal. A friend drove over and lay her hands on me for an hour. Just hands and silence and prayer.

Another friend heard something was wrong and immediately took my boys for ice cream. My dad came to town for several days and gave my boys fun adventures so my husband could focus on my care.

My five-year-old made a piece of artwork and propped it across the bed from me to help me heal. My sister-in-law FaceTimed with him to help him process his feelings and it made him feel connected and grounded.

My mom sent a care package with a stuffed animal I didn't know I needed to hold that badly.

My neighbor drove me to the ER and sat quietly in a chair beside me for hours without being asked.

Friends called their doctor contacts. Meals started arriving. A friend picked up my boys and took them for a play date. My mother-in-law drove in.

A professional contact pitched my services while I was in the hospital, trying to win a project for me while I couldn't do it myself.

And my husband, ten minutes before boarding a transatlantic flight, called to tell me he was turning around and coming home.

My boys, through all of it, adapted with a grace I did not expect and could not have asked for. They found new ways to love me. Quieter ways.

All of the messages and check ins I’ve received expressing love and care. The people who have followed up to make sure I was getting the care I needed and kept seeking answers when I felt like giving up.

I didn't know I had this.

You don't, until you need it. Until the pain creates the opening and the love rushes in to fill it.

That is what the darkness gave me.

My face is still paralyzed. I can't smile at my kids yet.

This has been the thing that cuts to my core. It’s challenging my beliefs and ideas about what it means to be a good mom.

And it’s strengthening my appreciation for all the miracles in life.

I hadn’t realized smiles were miracles until they were taken away from me.

But now, every smile I receive feels like such a gift and it gives me hope. Especially when it comes from one of my kids.

I've had time to think about what I stand for with Creative Foresight. I’ve asked whether it holds up when life takes a real turn like this one. Whether choosing creativity means anything when your health is on the line and you've spent two weeks alone in the dark.

Here's what I came back to.

Creativity has always been, for me, a channel to love. Not the other way around. Love is the anchor. Love is the source. Creativity is the form of direct access I've found to it. A way to move it. To give it shape. To send it somewhere.

And I noticed creativity in all of the ways I received love. No one did it the same way, and I needed all of it. I recognize the energy, initiative and effort it takes to show up for someone in need. How easy it is to not when you have your own full life. And I’m so grateful for every person who trusted that their idea and way of showing love was worth acting on.

It has all been beautiful to receive.

Love is healing.

Warmly,
Jennifer

Creative Current is the podcast I just launched with my friend and creative partner, Jess Schimm. We talk open-book style about our relationship with creativity and all it brings up in our lives. I love it so much. I trust you will too.

P.S. Want to encourage someone in your life whose taking creative risks? Share this email with them. It’s an encouragement to me, too!

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