I’m still in the middle of healing, but somewhere along the way I realized my life never stopped. I’m creating art, selling ravens, preparing to teach in Colorado, laughing at this crazy body—and occasionally taking a two-hour nap. Maybe we don’t have to wait until everything is fixed to keep living our story.

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.”

The biggest transformations rarely happen all at once. They begin with quiet choices—offering ourselves compassion, honoring our limits, and becoming the person our younger self always needed.