Broken Eggs

Hello Friends,

Today, I’m thinking about all the ways in which adversity can offer opportunity. Now, I’m not discounting how difficult adversity is. How much it can grind us down. How much it actively steals opportunity from a lot of us.

While I don’t face a huge amount of social adversity, I do face the adversity of chronic illness, to offer one example, and the concussion I suffered eighteen months ago that seems to have rewired my brain.

This sort of adversity sucks. It’s a struggle. It most definitely throws up hard limitations.

However… it has also opened doors to spaces I would not have noticed otherwise. These trials have gifted me with enforced slow downs. They have caused me to get creative in order to work. Chronic illness and post concussion syndrome have both also gifted me with a deeper, more intuitive form of listening to what my body, brain, and spirit actually need.

And I’ve been gifted with two book series. Both The Witches of Portland and the Seashell Cove Paranormal Mysteries were begun because I literally couldn’t work on anything else. The first series was planned while lying flat on my back with brain fog and exhaustion. I began plotting a series based around nine witches, their community, and the stories of their lives. I figured out what was important to me, and then figured out a way to—in fits and starts—somehow travel the road to get there.

The pandemic and the slow rolling aftermath of my concussion ended up gifting me with Bookshop Witch (and the forthcoming Haunted Witch, and Tarot Witch). I needed something fun and whacky and let my brain go wild with it.

If it hadn’t been for adversity, these books may have never seen the light of day.

I wouldn’t wish a pandemic, a chronic illness, or a concussion on anyone. They’re all terrible and life altering in difficult ways.

But in living with all three, I’ve been able to explore the small openings that allow creativity to find its own way.

It’s the “make an omelette from broken eggs” theory. Even though I don’t eat eggs, and even though sometimes our lives might be better with our eggs unbroken and able to hatch.

This isn’t about false positivity, its about doing our best with what we have.

Better isn’t always possible.

So what is possible?

blessings - Thorn