By Sarah D. Park

I know that in a few years from now, I will look back upon this fall of 2023 and wave it off as a particularly difficult season in my life. My recollection of the details of that difficulty will fade. My body will not remember the acuity of the pain. In a few years from now, I know that I will have arrived to that fuzzy state of nostalgia where I get to say, “It wasn’t as hard as it sounds.”

In a few years from now. But for now, it is hard. It is hard to care for my child. It is hard to care for myself. It is hard to care for my marriage. It is hard to care for relationships across time zones and state lines.

At the end of a day, I go to bed wondering if there was anything I could’ve done that would have made that day easier. Can’t I course correct somehow? At least if I were the issue, I’d have some control. But it is also one more thing on my shoulders.

But I’m coming to terms with the reality that it is simply a hard season. Bad days are a new normal. Once I let go of my need to strong-arm better days into existence, I don’t have to wake up and muster all my willpower as if readying for battle. Instead, I wake up and keep my eyes open: to the spit-up, to the new kind of giggle, to the body aches, to the steam dancing off my tea.

I’m struggling and that’s where I am right now. May that be enough.

Sarah D. Park is a freelance writer whose work focuses on the cultivation of cross-racial dialogue with a Christian faith orientation. She is also a story producer for Inheritance Magazine and manages communications for several organizations. She currently calls the Bay Area her home but is an Angeleno through and through.