Becoming a witch, grief spiraling, and liminal spaces.

It’s been a minute. I haven’t written anything in months minus a few lackluster sentences in my notes app that lack soul and don’t say anything real. In fact, the last time I wrote anything was right after I hurled a chai latte at this disgusto that cat-called me on Thanksgiving. No lattes have been hurled since, but I will say it was an invigorating experience and will definitely happen again if warranted. But a lot of other shit has happened since, and I don’t know why I haven’t prioritized writing more because lord knows that writing truly is my best means of catharsis and I’ve been desperate for some emotional reprieve.

I’ve been missing my mom a lot lately. It’s year four and I guess I thought by now that it would feel lighter, or I would carry my grief with more grace. But it turns out that’s not the case and my grief is just as messy, heavy, and complicated. It comes in waves and exists in layers. It shocks me and surprises me, taking me down without notice. A song. A robin. A clothing store, book, recipe, nail polish color, or perfume scent. Any of it can send me right into a grief spiral where the fact that my mother no longer physically exists on this earth becomes truly unfathomable. The cruelty and unfairness become highlighted, as I’m forced to choke down the reality that I’m motherless. And fuck, man—I really need to be mothered right now.

I’m in a weird yet exciting point in my life where so much has changed with even more change to come. I’ve deliberately stepped away from my calculated and curated life where I put on my scrubs every day, made some scratch, did my best to keep up with the Joneses so my deadbeat husband could feel a semblance of importance, and then did it all again. Rinse and repeat. I was living my life completely fueled by other people’s wants and expectations and I had a fucking-nuff. It was a long road to burn down all that no longer served me, but I finally made it to the other side. I’m starting school in three weeks to be a doctor of Chinese medicine. I’m in a relationship that’s healthy and stable. I can see my abs again. I’m sober. And I’m trying to have a baby. Everything in my life is finally coming up roses and the only person I want to talk to about it is my mom.

But not just to bask in the goodness. I can do that with anyone. What I really miss is the way she understood me to my core and the way she would know what a true miracle it is for me to feel this way. You see, happiness and joy don’t come easy for me. They never have. I’ve always felt an unfairness about life and the fact that I didn’t ask to be here. No one consulted me about being born. No one asked if I was ready to endure. So for a lot of my life, I’ve felt bitter about being forced to pursue existence, as if it was a punishment. And in a lot of ways, it has been. I got dealt a weird hand and the result of that has been this inevitable feeling like the other shoe is always going to drop. It has become hard, if not impossible, to truly believe that I deserve good things, so when I get dope shit like second chances and fresh starts, I proceed with caution. And historically, the other shoe does tend to drop, which has only strengthened my vindication. Two miscarriages in a row certainly fit the bill. It left me reeling in ways I couldn’t convey, and my instinct is to comb through my every thought and action to identify what it is that I did to deserve punishment this time. I can’t fathom a world where karma doesn’t come for me, despite my adamant attempts at radical acceptance that sometimes things just are. The heartache of seeing the pink lines disappear and hemorrhage out my hopes for the future caught me off guard. It devastated me in ways that were unexpected. And like I said, the only person I want to talk to about it is my mom.

First of all, she would be filled with joy that I’ve decided to become a mom myself. I’ve spent years adamantly proclaiming that I would never procreate. I was certain that I didn’t have a maternal bone in my body and that I would be doing a disservice to society by reproducing. But something shifted when I met Jesse. I found partnership that felt safe and made sense. Who saw me as fit and capable to guide another human life through the world. Who had confidence that I could not only do this, but that I would thrive. So in between the crying fits, panic attacks, and raging hormones from two consecutive miscarriages, I’ve held onto hope. We’re continuing on our journey to conceive, but there’s not a day that I don’t think about how great it would be to call my mom. To scream about the unfairness while simultaneously preparing for another cycle. To cry ‘I can’t do this’ when I know damn well that I can. To be scared about my emotional capacity, mental health, and sobriety status as I purposefully put myself in a situation that very well might end in distress. Because she knew how to assimilate my dark with my light. She was an alchemist when it came to me. She knew how to handle my discouragement, fear, and pain—how to infuse it with gratitude, self-compassion, and grace. How to take the bitter girl who was upset that she had to be a person in the world and remind her that good can’t exist without bad. If it weren’t for pain, I would never truly appreciate joy, and that is truly a gift of humanity. That to be a person is to engage in it all. It’s literally the whole point. And that regardless of my disposition, the grit that runs through my veins gives me no choice but to carry on.

She would also be so proud that I’m going back to school. That I took time to soul search and am not afraid to pursue my calling. She would also tell my dad to fuck himself when he laughed at my choice to practice Chinese medicine. My dad is in his eighties and has dementia—he has no ability to conceptualize my “why.” He forgets that it was Chinese medicine that cured my trauma-induced neuralgia and pseudoparalysis. He doesn’t know that Chinese medicine is the only thing that has offered me solace and soothed me during bouts of depression, anxiety, and relapses. He doesn’t know how integral it was to my recovery while I was in rehab, and how it healed parts of me that Western medicine has never come close to touching. He can’t understand that my life’s work is only beginning now and that I get this incredible opportunity to put back into the world what was gifted to me. And although I know the dementia has hindered this greatly, it still hurts to feel like my dad thinks I’m a loser and to have to grin and bear it while he tells people that I’m “going to be a witch.” If only I were that lucky…

But my mom wouldn’t have needed an explanation at all. She would just get it. And in the midst of my fear about not working for five years, being scared that I don’t know how to be a student anymore, starting something new, etc.… she would remind me that I know how to do hard things. And my friends and boyfriend remind me of this all the time, but something about the way my mom said it is second to none. And it makes me miss her a little extra. Then of course Mother’s Day is on the horizon and let me tell you, the body keeps the score. I swear I could live without a calendar and pinpoint exactly her deathday, holidays, her birthday, and mine. My body just knows, starting with a mild ache that turns into solar plexus spasms and chest tightness as the day nears. Then on the day of, my body feels like cement, almost as if it’s forcing me to slow down and commune with the mother-sized hole in my heart. To force me away from distractions and to honor my grief. And as much as I dread it, I also recognize that grief is the flip side of love and staying in gratitude that I behold the capacity to love so great helps soften the edges a little. But it’s still impossible not to dwell on the things I want to share in person. Like how I got sober and how she was right about prayer all along. My mom was deeply spiritual and it took me being brought to my knees to be willing to explore what that was about. And she would just love how I found God in the airport, Central Park, and the ocean. How I surf tandem with God and commune with him in the jungle—both concrete and natural. How I get so overwhelmed by spirit on sunny days that sometimes it makes me cry. And that my life inevitably is better when I’m spiritually fit. It would thrill her—all of it. And I’m really fucking sad that I don’t get to tell her face-to-face.

So in this time of transition, I’m navigating the dichotomy of being incredibly grateful and excited for all that will be and the pain and sadness of what never will be again. I’m truly in a liminal space. And that’s okay. Springtime is the season of new beginnings. I’m a wood type, which means this is my season. It’s my time time to blossom and become—I have no choice but to embrace all that’s to come, regardless of the mess on the periphery. And it’s safe to say that it’s time to release my grief expectations because let’s face it, they never were to be expected anyway. Year four, or year forty-five, grief is a bitch and there’s no way around it. The best I can do is be the best things about the people that are gone, and the rest will sort itself out. As always, onward and upward.