Day 41 of    #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Playing catchup, but who cares? Good books follow. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and read by millions, Angela's Ashes is a memoir and book one of Frank McCourt's trilogy of his childhood in Ireland. The book woefully reads as tales of struggle and poverty, but moreover as heartache and the very essential resilience in which McCourt gained during his years. He aged before his time. Old souls, are what I call them. Throughout his stern Catholic upbringing and constant hunger for knowledge, he struggled with rules and battled with thoughts of what was right and what was wrong. He saw beauty in simplicity. In hunger, he saw the honor in thankfulness for food. This book has a lot of feels. It's raw. Poignant. Some might not be able to handle the frankness and bluntness of what was in that era, and the exposure of taboo subjects and ways. McCourt challenged them all and lived to tell the tale. My copy

Ugh. I wish it didn't come to this. That I was so behind. More than a month behind on my #bookspine365 project, where I share a book daily from my bookshelf. Unfortunately life gets in the way. Life, in this particular circumstance happens to be chronic pain where I have personally dealt it with for years and recently underwent a procedure which I am recovering slowly. I share this with you because I made a commitment for myself for this writing project. I also share this because while others are nosy, intentionally mean, curious, or understandably don't know what to say---I am also a US Pain Foundation Ambassador. It is with that title that I intend to be transparent as possible but still maintain my privacy in the hopes of advocating, gathering and sharing resources, and becoming a voice in the pain community in letting others know they are not alone. There is help, there is hope. There is also power in standing up for yourself and fighting against the negative influences,