Some mornings grief sits down at the table before I do. I miss my parents. I manage depression the way you manage a chronic thing — with medicine, with routine, with light through a window and something warm in my hands.
Joy still arrives in the same day: a finished hem, a note from a customer, sunlight on Idaho snow. I used to think I had to choose one feeling and evict the other. I cannot. Both get a chair.
Rest, for me, is not escape. It is making room — for sorrow, for gratitude, and for the next small stitch.