I've started practicing again.

One time at a party, I met a woman I think I was meant to meet. As we talked, she dropped so much profound wisdom that was in perfect alignment with things I needed to hear. One of the many things she said to me was, "That's life - the forgetting, remembering, forgetting, and remembering again. It's the remembering that matters."

I've gone through so many seasons in my life where I felt I had lost or forgotten how to embody important parts of who I am, and slowly returned to them.

This season of my life is no different. It has taught me how to remember my own artistic and personal power, how to face the most gutting kinds of fear, and... that the hardest part is getting started. This is a phrase I've heard many times throughout my life as someone who can struggle with task avoidance. But more and more I think it's the wrestling with the idea of starting that is the hardest. Next to this in difficulty is the moment when you sit down to start. The rest is nearly effortless.

I sat down recently to practice properly for the first time in a very trying six months. I had begun to take piano lessons again but was quickly leveled by a chronic biological and mental condition and made the difficult decision to stop. My current goal is to work back up to being able to take lessons and practice through mental pain.

I expected something that was so much harder than what it was. Playing again felt like having a cup of tea with an old friend and talking things out. It soothed my nervous physical energy in a way I haven't experienced in a good while.

"You've been gone a long time."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I know. You don't have to be."

"It's going to take some time to get to where I want to be, though."

"Well, you've done extraordinary things before and you can again."

All this to say, do the meaningful, fulfilling, harmless thing you've been avoiding. You may have a conversation with something within you that you've been needing to have. Your mind and body may also thank you and bring you peace.