"How do we come back from this?"
The 3 Things turns 2, and it's ME Awareness Month
I remember exactly where I was when January 6th, 2021 unfolded on my television screen. I sat on my couch in a kind of stunned disbelief. And underneath the shock, a question kept rising up that I could not shake loose: how do we come back from this?
Not just politically. But as people. As a collective. How do we find our way back to each other when something that fundamental has fractured?
I did not have a simple answer. But I realized, sitting there in the wreckage of that day, that I was already writing one.
The outline for the book came to me during my morning writing practice after three months of an unknown virus had left me a shell of my old self. I had prayed for my higher power to either heal me or take me because I could not go on living like that. That prayer was not answered the way I expected. Instead I was forced to turn inward, to connect with my higher power and my higher self. I believe throwing myself into writing this book was preparing me for what was to come.
Shortly before the nightmare of the Capitol riot, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor while doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I was so relieved, y’all. Finally, something showing up on a test. I was scheduled for brain surgery and had hope that I would get back to my former self. I knew I had to write this book before surgery. I gave myself three months to get the first draft done, and I did it.
I did not return to my former glory. But brain surgery recovery requires a lot of rest, and so does ME/CFS, though I did not know I had that yet. So I slept around the clock for weeks, listened to my body, and slowly started to improve. We moved back to my hometown and a math teaching position opened up. I had been writing about how our gifts and talents can match up with the needs of our community, and it felt like an obvious choice.
So I was teaching sixth grade. And coaching cross country. And planning school dances. And caring for my father who was sick, while parenting, managing our home, and supporting my Marine husband who was commuting three hours round trip to base every day. I never reached 100% but my brain surgeon told me there comes a point where you just have to push through. So I did. Every day I showed up for a classroom full of kids who needed steadiness and presence, and I gave it to them even when I had almost nothing left to give. I would go home and sleep after school, and entire weekends went to recovery so I could go back on Monday.
I wrote and revised and wrote some more anyway. Because the book felt necessary. Because the question of how we heal collectively felt urgent in a way I could not ignore.
The book was done. The tour was planned. I had a vision for how this would go, how I would finally get to stand in front of readers and say: here, I wrote this for us, for right now, for exactly this moment we are living through.
Two months before publication day, a virus changed everything.
I became disabled almost overnight. The ME/CFS that had been building for years was pushed into a severity I had not experienced before. I could not work. I could not travel. There were days I could not get out of bed, could not think clearly, could not manage the basic tasks of being a person in the world, let alone an author with a book to launch.
Instead of a big city book launch, I held a small, quiet event in our little town. It took weeks to recover from.
The book I had poured everything into went out into the world. And then it went quiet. I grieved that in a way that is hard to fully put into words. It felt like the loss of something I had worked so hard for, something I believed in so deeply, going quiet before it had the chance to be heard.
An estimated 3.35 million adults in the United States are living with ME/CFS right now. As many as 75% are unable to work. Around 25% are housebound or bedbound. (CDC) That is not a small number. That is millions of writers, teachers, artists, parents, creators and thinkers, people with something vital to contribute, who have gone missing from their own lives.
I am one of them. (see my TEDx talk below). And the silence around this disease means that most people have no idea how many of us there are, what we have lost, or what we are still trying to give from wherever we find ourselves today.
I say that not for sympathy. I say it because I want you to understand what it means when someone with ME/CFS shows up anyway. We are not being dramatic when we say it is risky. We are telling you the truth. And we keep showing up because we believe the work matters.
This book matters. The conversation it opens matters. And this community, the one reading this right now, matters more than I can say.
The Birthday Wish
Today is The 3 Things’ second birthday, and I have a wish.
I want this book to find the people who need it. The ones who are still asking how we come back from this, and honestly, how much further down we have gone since January 6th. The ones who are exhausted by division and desperately want a practical path forward.
For this week only, the ebook is available for $2.22 in honor of two years. You can grab it on Bookshop.org or Amazon. And if you have not seen the reel I made to go along with this, you can watch it here.
Every share, every tag, every review is a gift to a disabled author who cannot do this the way she planned. And it is a gift to every reader who has not found this book yet but needs it.
A Way Forward
Two years ago I asked how we come back from this.
I still believe The 3 Things is part of the answer. If anything, that need has only grown.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for two years. And thank you, in advance, for helping it find the people who need it most. 🤍 I love you and I’m so glad you’re here.
Maggie's book touched me deeply. I gained much insight into myself by reading it and now I can live a better life knowing about the Three Things! Bravo, Maggie! It is an excellent book!