Does anyone remember that ridiculously catchy song from the summer of 1997 by the one-hit-wonder Chumbawamba?

“I get knocked down, but I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down…”

Last night, as I was climbing into bed, that song appeared in my head out of nowhere. And I thought to myself, “When did my life start feeling like a Chumbawamba song?” I should clarify. Not the parts of the song that talk about whiskey and vodka, but the above refrain that champions resilience after being knocked down.

A blog written simply for the fulfillment of thoughts and rambling of a person who ended up loving the world in ways it could never begin to love her back. Are we ever ready for anything that happens within our lives? Absolutely not. Nothing could’ve prepared me to fight for my life. The girl before me, the person I was, passed. Her hands were gripping the bedside railing; her eyes cluing in on the steady decline of numbers on the screen. She let go. And soon enough, the birth of a new life rose from the cracks.

I recently returned from my first vacation in two years.  Just weeks before the trip, I unfortunately triggered a severe back spasm, which was a big disappointment since having great success with a double surgery last June to correct a 20-year-old injury.  The stress and frustration of life seemed to again pile up and land square in the middle of my back, only making things extremely painful. 

I was scrolling through social media last night when a photo of a beautiful baby caught my attention. She had impossibly large blue eyes that stared deeply into the camera. She was gorgeous. The post was in a large online parenting group and it was accompanied by a caption written by the baby’s mother about how devastated she was. She had just been told that her baby has Cystic Fibrosis. She wondered what kind of life her daughter could expect to have now that she was diagnosed with this horrible disease.