It’s easy for us to talk about our physical health. We’ll discuss, at length, our cholesterol numbers, our exercise habits, or our physical ailments. But, ask us about our mental health, and most of us tend to clam up.

I’ve spent years and years and years working on my own mental health, yet I often feel vulnerable when I discuss depression. (You’ll notice, we are nearly in June and I’m just now posting my “May is Mental Health Month” blog.) Although I sometimes find it difficult to talk about mental health, that doesn’t stop me. I write and speak on this topic not because it is easy for me to open my heart, but because I feel it is important for me to do so. Why waste pain? The whole point of making it through life’s challenges is so that we can help others. So today, I’m writing about mental health awareness.

There comes this moment, after you’ve been sick, when you realize that you can breathe again.

No longer is your body fighting itself. No longer is your head in a cloud. No longer do you want to crawl into bed and just sleep the day away. There comes this precise moment when you realize that you have been restored to health. When the world is set right…once again. When the fog has been lifted and you can see with clarity…once again. When life is beautiful…once again.

Ahhhh…

What a wonderful feeling it is…to breathe again.

It was a day of fellowship, stories, and tears. Last Saturday, my mom and I participated in two community walks. We began our day walking in the AFSP’s Out of the Darkness Community Walk. My mom is full of spunk and sass and doesn’t have a depressed bone in her body. But, she knew this walk was important to me, so she gladly joined in.

What would it be like if I allowed a typo to slip through in this blog and I didn't go back and fix it?

Some of you laugh at the idea that someone could get all riled up about a typo. "A typo is no big deal." Yes, you are right. A typo is no big deal. But there are times when, in reference to a typo or some other minor misstep, our perspectives can become so skewed that the mistake becomes a gigantic screw-up. Or, in grammar terms (I love symbolism!), times when a typo becomes a HUGE TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR. When those times come, then please read my message to you.

Dear friends,
When you begin to blow your typos out of porportion, and become so focused on preventing errors that you've lost all objectivity, then repeat after me, "A typo is no big deal. There are bigger things in life. I will focus on what matters. I will try to do my best, but will learn to embrace my imperfections and if a typo slips through, then so be it."