Dear Reese,
At dinner I tell you about a lesson I learn over and over again.
When I’m anxious or sad I get stuck in my body. It’s so hard to stand up or look away from a screen or feel like I have energy to do anything but sink deeper into myself.
Getting unstuck mentally starts physically, at least for me. Standing up. Getting water. Breaking out my walking pad after a neglected day and a half this week and walking for 100 minutes at the end of the day. I am at least 50% mentally better every time I choose to move my body on my most anxious days but that first step always feels like climbing a mountain.
I hope this lesson comes easier to you in your life than it has for me.
Love,
Mama
The Knight & The Cursed Forest, Part 8
When you finished fastening the bracelet, the unicorn is gone.
It’s just you, the duck, and your unicorn hair bracelet still tingling on your skin. But the whispers, the power you felt from the creature have vanished.
The duck exclaims how lucky you were to encounter an actual unicorn and you nod, wondering what blessing the bracelet would hold for you.
You set out once again down the forest trail towards home. You can’t be very far now, but this path is different than your journey to the pond. Longer and darker somehow. It must only be midday but by shade of the trees it feels like the sun is setting again.
As you walk a long decline in the trail, fog starts swirling around your feet . . . and your knees . . . until there is only fog in front of you. The duck flies up but reports back that there is fog for as long as he can see through the forest.
There’s nothing for it, you keep walking.
You’re not able to see far ahead as you’re fully immersed in the fog but a large shape starts to come into view. Once again what you thought was a tree is a troll! But as you get closer you see it’s not moving at all — petrified where it stands, the troll might as well be made of stone.
Before you can examine further, you hear a hhiiiisss above you head. Slowly, you look up.
To be continued.