APW Happy Hour | A Practical Wedding

Hey APW,

On Tuesday, I was casually walking to work (which means opening my front door and walking around the side of the house to the Tuff Shed we had built as a studio during the height of the pandemic). And somehow I slipped and fell face first down four steps, and gouged a three inch super deep cut in my leg. When we figured out I couldn’t stand without passing out, we called an ambulance, and I spent five hours in the ER getting stitched up. I’m going to have a scar on my leg that needs a much more exciting story. Currently, I’m recovering at a shockingly fast pace, but I’m easily exhausted as my body puts it’s work into healing. And that means I’ve had to ditch my normal ambitious plans so I can just let myself heal.

As I write that, I realize it’s a metaphor for so many of our lives right now. In the US the pandemic is easing, and in California our vaccination rates are high, and our infection rates are impossibly low. So that means that in theory we’re able to re-enter our old lives, a bit. Except our lives have changed, we’ve changed, and we’re all carrying so much trauma from the past year. I’ve found that when I do small old world things (like going out to eat) it takes an enormous amount out of me, and afterwards I need to spend time quietly rebalancing. There is so much energy going into the internal healing, that there is less to go into external socializing… which is the opposite of what I would have expected in the depths of the pandemic

But next week, because our family is undertaking the ultimate re-entry challenge. We’re spending four days at Disneyland with our pod family, while Disneyland’s capacity is still capped at 25%. Disneyland was the last thing we did as a family before shut down (let’s talk about us buying an annual pass in the last week of February 2020, haha). And being able to do it again—even though our kids will need to be masked the whole time—is such a healing moment for them. But yet. We know it will be overwhelming, and like jumping into the deep end, so we’re planning to be slow and careful and not push ourselves too much. (Plus I still have a healing gouge on my leg, so I can’t go crazy.)

All that means that APW is taking our annual summer break next week. Our own Alyssa is getting married this weekend (hooray!), I’m at Disneyland, and the rest of the team will be quietly working behind the scenes on all our other projects. (Check out my new site if you haven’t… and Practical Business School is coming your way very shortly.)

To all of you: enjoy this first week of summer! May you give your healing all the time and space it needs. We’ll be on Instagram during the break (and you can follow my personal adventures there too if you’d like). We’ll see you back here on June 28. Cheers!

XO
Meg