Dancing in the Storm

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

~ Tao te Ching (Chapter 67)

Within the Storm, We Still Dance

Today I’ve been functioning, doing all the things I’m supposed to. But underneath, I’ve been clawing at my skin. Flinching at every sound. Inside, through my mind’s eye, I can see her: the version of me no one sees…curled up, screaming, weeping, throwing every form of weighted glass I can find…falling apart while the outside of me makes lunch, picks up toys, answers a thousand questions, and continues to build her career while making ends meet.

I’ve smiled and carried on. Surviving, all while collapsing a thousand times in silence.

The Quiet Collapse

Some days, like today, I feel myself cracking beneath the surface. It bubbles up in small ways: little whimpers escaping my lips that I resist before they form into a sob, my forehead resting against the steering wheel as I claw into its fabric and grit my teeth as I scream inside.

Inwardly, I let it all happen. I let myself fall.

I collapse into the bellows, the screaming, the grief. I let it pour over and through me like rain soaking into dry soil. I’m scared. I’m overwhelmed. I’m lonely. And I’m still showing up.

Even when my eyes lose focus, when my voice falls flat, when I can’t hear another sound around me, I’m still here.

Still being a mother.

Still holding my little one’s hand, whispering “It’s okay,” even when I don’t know exactly how it will be, but I continue to make damn sure it is.

It’s a strange, tender place to live in, where I am both crumbling and held. Where I walk the knife’s edge between grief and grace.

The Dreamscape

Lately, my dreams have given me imagery that feels like a direct translation of what I’m living.

Imagine Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 playing in the background. Soft, melancholic, beautiful. And there I am with my son, smiling and dancing in the rain. We look so small from above, just two little humans wrapped in joy and tenderness despite the darkness around us.

The sky is heavy, but there’s a glow behind the clouds, just enough light to see the world around us stretching for miles. In the distance, five tornadoes roar.

Some are moving toward us.

Others are spinning outward into unknown places.

My entire focus sharpens: Protect my boy.

I shift into that primal protectiveness, scanning the dreamscape for shelter. I look for basements, for bathtubs and mattresses to place over our heads.

I move fast, quietly, and with purpose. Always hiding us away.

Always protecting him first.

And yet, there’s also stillness. There’s play. Laughter, even. Particularly in our waking world. That’s the treasure my little one is. Always sunshine and joy.

Yet, we’re living inside something dystopian. The entire world feels like it’s unraveling, and at the same time, we are still loving. Still laughing. Still reaching for light wherever we can find it.

Tornadoes Within Tornadoes

In this dream, and in waking life, every human moment feels sacred. Connection, affection, presence…it’s all so precious. While vanity and superficial things feel absurd in the face of such deep change.

Something massive is happening. On a global, collective level…yes. But also on an individual level, microscopic and intimate.

It’s like there are tornadoes inside of tornadoes. Storms within storms. Grief within joy. Terror within transformation.

But even the little storms have moments to breathe. Moments of eye-of-the-storm stillness. Where the chaos hovers in suspension. And in that pause, flowers bloom. Children laugh. Rain kisses cheeks. And the sun tries to peek through.

Then the rain comes again. And it all swirls together into an intimate dance of suffering and rejoicing, undoing and becoming.

It’s everywhere.

Within us and around us.

And Still, We Rise

I don’t always know how to talk about it. Sometimes I’m afraid to be seen this way, this raw and undone. But I’m learning that being seen doesn’t mean being unsafe. And that even the act of saying it out loud is its own kind of liberation.

So maybe this isn’t just for me.

Maybe it’s for the ones who smile while unraveling.

The ones who hold little hands through storms.

The ones who are grieving, but still rising.

The ones who dance in the rain with tornadoes in the distance.

We are not broken. We are transforming.

There is grief.

There is grace.

And somehow, still, we love,

we mother,

we heal,

we endure,

and become.

Even here.

Especially here.