It's been a month since I've sent one of these #notesfromkait out. In the midst of constant online noise, a hefty dose of anxiety, and navigating life with 2 full time jobs and no childcare... 

what was there to say?

Spoiler alert: I am jumping ahead a bit in my story. We'll get to the full explanation here soon, but for those of you who don't know I do work full time running community development at HoneyBook, working primarily with the incredible Rising Tide community.

For the last few weeks we've been focused on shifting 100% of our efforts to supporting small businesses through the economic impact of this pandemic. We've made difficult and important decisions like: cancelling the annual Rising Tide leader retreat (a painful thing to do 3 weeks out after 8 months of work), shifting all of our in person local chapter gatherings online for the first time ever, and hosting our very first global TuesdaysTogether event just this week.

There's also been the personal side of being a high risk immune compromised individual with an already weakened ability to breathe. Many tough conversations have happened in our household with tears shed and directions given of wishes and directions for advocacy. It is sobering to move so fluidly between supporting a pandemic in a professional manner to preparing my family for knowing the difference between a myasthenic crisis and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Taking it day by day and sometimes hour by hour, I've settled into a rhythm now that allows for me to ride the waves of fatigue and emotion without getting lost in the motion. It's looked a lot like being present in the beauty of the ordinary: making bread, collecting rocks, sifting through dirt, walking up and down our driveway.

During that online TuesdaysTogether event, we dug deep. I was reminded that community-centered vulnerability is important.We showed up for each other (all 1,500 of us) even through a computer screen. And it reminded me of what I had put on pause while I waded through the mud of adjusting to this pandemic lifestyle... 

Showing up for others as our messy imperfect selves will get us through this because we have been through hard things before.

So while I felt for a solid month there that there was no possible way my story could be relevant in this time of intense widespread suffering, I'm beginning to think that maybe it's still important. For as much as I am worried about myself and my family, the well-being of others, the safety of our loved ones, and the uncertainty of what life will look like when we emerge from this—I know that I have endured and survived long, exhausting, and sometimes seemingly-insurmountable hardship. I can draw on those experiences as strength for today, even if only for a moment.

Ps: if you want to catch up on old emails, you can find them here.