Sometimes healing doesn’t announce itself. Sometimes it sneaks in through mountain air, morning walks, laughter, creativity, and the realization that you’re doing things you couldn’t imagine doing just weeks before. Colorado gave me more than a wonderful trip—it helped me find a piece of myself I thought I’d lost.

What happens when life forces you to slow down, but your brain never learned how? I’m learning that I may not need to get back to who I was. Maybe I just need to give myself permission to discover who I am now—and trust that I’ll get there when I get there.

Sometimes what we’re going through simply isn’t funny. But resilience doesn’t mean we have to laugh at the hard stuff. Sometimes it means making room for laughter anyway—and finding humor wherever we can, even if that means Jaws, dive-bombing bats, and a near miss with a very fashionable “bat hat.”