Hey guys 👋 I’m baaaaack! I could not be more grateful for how my last few days have looked. I have SO much to tell you all. So many updates to give. So much gratitude and credit to dole out. Probably even a few more tears to shed. But for right now, I’ll just say a gigantic thank you to our village.
People talk about a village as a concept. Find your village, they say. It takes a village. A village implies security. Home. Comfort. It is a notion that sounds lovely to all, but not one everyone has the pleasure of experiencing personally. In the midst of Bradys surgery, our people showed UP. We had a beautiful circle already, for which I was grateful, but I had no idea the loyalty built into our people. Our cheerleaders. Our village.
And then here comes this last weekend. The coldest weekend of the season thus far. And once again, our people SHOWED UP. Plus!!! A whole schwack of people we did not know showed up, because a friend of ours reached out to them, and because they are in each other’s village, they came into ours to help us. It was like, a village by proxy. It was absolutely heart wrenching, and a gift we NEVER would’ve expected. We had a group of maybe ten people come in to help us move, and we personally knew three of them. Three. I couldn’t even tell you all of their names. Out of the three people we knew, two are like our family, one was from work, and they came in happy and willing and loving. As did the crew of people we didn’t know!!!. It was a bizarre, beautiful, wild day of working. And if you missed it, it was cold as BALLS out there!!! No joke, I dropped a soother, and this is what happened.
It shattered. THAT is the level of cold they were dealing with. Every last one of them had smiles on their faces, reassuring us along the way that they were happy to help, one even noting “Oh I get it, it is so vulnerable letting others help you move.” I’m not sure I could’ve felt more comfortable or taken care of in the moment.
As the cold begins to let us juuuuust a little, everything feels marginally more doable. For example, going out to the garage. That feels less uncomfortable and like something I’m more willing to do. But when I consider how much work was so willingly done on our behalf this weekend by people who had no loyalty to US and didn’t have to help us, it seems silly and petty and entitled. Rather than pick these things apart, though, and rather than taking on guilt, I choose gratefulness and sheer joy.
To our village, and our village by proxy, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. We could not be here to this capacity without the help of so many willing hands on such a blisteringly cold day.
Photo dump in the days to come 💜
