Reverend Ann Pittman Zarate

Did you discover your November is going to need more cortisol regulation? How about serotonin? If you’re freaking out, here’s a last minute opportunity for positive psychology. Claim what you can to grieve and regroup. 🧡 .ash.yoga .ash.drackert Daily Gratitude 💕

I’m late on this post, but not on my mammogram! For I want to feature 3 amazing women in my life: my cousin my fellow 1st soprano & one of my fave playwrights Each is surviving breast cancer this year Lia was published in the and elsewhere about her experience, Jen was honored by UT/St. David’s as their Pink Out survivor. And Ruthie plays in a band and plays the harp. She was able to return to the stage for the first time last month. Here’s an interview with her & some other lovely reminders. WOMEN stand up for yourselves and your health. Mammograms save lives 💕

Seven years ago, they were wheeling me into surgery right about now. Maybe they had moved the epidural already even. Giving birth is supposed to be the best day of your life, but it isn’t. It was awful: painful, scary, confusing; a bad dream you only remember in florescent flashes.

It is not untrue that motherhood changes you. I don’t know why I thought I could change it. Shaffer grabbed the phone from me and spun around in our favorite breakfast café, pressing the picture icon over and over. He was allowed bacon and a doughnut, sans the (usually obligatory) eggs and fruit. I ordered my favorite, but didn’t have an appetite. This picture is my life.

Seven seems so significant - in numerology and religion, and in our life as well. You are practically a grown-up in first grade. You have anxiety, an unimpressive diet, and watch too much TV. You’re a tiny boomer who doesn’t realize that words have meaning and can hurt people. But you are blooming despite the things we have done to hurt you.

I have felt, over the past year, that I’ve been losing you. Seven is significant, but maybe for loss more than perseverance or triumph. I feel you slipping away. You respond so naturally to the things around you; you are so easily affected. What we put in your mind comes out, and it scares me. I am not enough to win when it comes to filling your cup to the brim.

I melt when you call my name even if you scream it, berating me with my own title. And you still melt into me with fatigue, illness, and gratitude. We melt my heart.

I will miss the days of two missing front teeth, singing in the backseat, and creative attempts at phonetics.

They tell me 7 years will all to quickly be 14 and then 21.

I will believe them this time.