I love the quote "When you can't change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails" (H. Jackson Brown Jr.). But in order to adjust your sails you have to have a mast, and in this cast a boom. Without our skeletons, our muscles and skin would be lumps on the floor. It is the push and pull of the muscles against and around our bones that give us shape and movement. And our skin acts as the protective covering over it all. Our boat also has an unseen skeleton that braces all of the boards that make up the hull of the boat. Additionally, however, the mast and boom are skeletons that hold the sails. With that spine firmly in place the sails control the wind and allow the master sailor to guide her home, even in the worst of storms.

I'm working on strengthening my own physical spine and nervous system so that I don't experience as much pain in my body. Additionally, I can work to strengthen my mental, emotional, and spiritual spines so that when the storms of life assail, I will have the strength to simply adjust my sails and return home.

Today I worked on the support beams for the train tracks. I pondered on the importance of having strong support in our lives. There have been times in my life when I had very little support. I felt that no one understood what I was experiencing and I felt very alone, hopeless, and helpless.

At other times in my life, like now, I've had strong people who understand, love, and care about me. They're willing to listen without judging, help without micromanaging, and allow me to grow at my own pace.

When our support systems break down we become as vulnerable as this train would be if those beams began to break. Perhaps it would make it to the other side before the tracks collapsed under it. Or perhaps it wouldn't, and all would be lost. And so it is with us. If we don't have strong, supportive, stable people in our lives we can't be sure we'll make it to the other side of our problems. And if we go down, how many others will go down with us?