“Breathe”, I tell myself as I leave a school meeting about the upcoming standardized testing. Walking out to the parking lot, I begin my mantra about not getting caught up in the inescapable madness. “Keep breathing”.  It hits me, as it has over the past couple months, that I am breathing. Really breathing.

Until six months ago, I suffered from terrible asthma.  My long-dormant childhood asthma swept back into my life three years ago and took over my life. I told everyone that it was as if an internal switch had been turned on. It didn’t take long before I woke up every night and day to suffocating attacks. My spray and tight chest became my proscriptive companions. There was no relief for my over-reactive closing airways. 

Just as mysteriously, the switch turned off last summer. A gift and a reprieve. Walking out today, I realized that I had forgotten the beauty and the wonder of breathing easily. Yes, the day had been stressful but I could breathe in and out. I need to remember that.