Hi Friend!
The first few months of the year had knuck if you buck energy. Maybe it’s just me, but I couldn’t wait to be free of that. May feels so much better already.
I wanted to stop by & wish my good people a beautiful month ahead. May is the month that celebrates nurses & doulas. May carries a lot for me, too. It’s my fourth anniversary in birthwork. Almost eighteen years ago, I graduated nursing school.
May also carries Mother’s Day, my heart is with mothers this month. The ones raising babies, grieving babies, mothering grown children, mothering alone, mothering while exhausted, mothering while healing parts of themselves at the same time. I hope you’re loved on deeply this month. Truly.
I’m grown as hell, but I have to admit that I want my mom. I want to tell her that I made it. I made it to a place where life looks nothing like what I was taught as a child & I’m very happy here. I could speak for hours about breaking generational curses, but lately I keep thinking about how badly I wish my mother could see herself through my eyes now. I would apologize to her for mistaking her protection for obstructing my liberation.
My mother’s protection has continued to live on for over a decade. I love the fine china & all the beautiful things she left behind, but the love & protection she wrapped around me & my babies? That’s the legacy I can only hope to leave behind myself.
I also wish I could tell her that I still need her. Just to sit & rock me the way she used to.
As much as it hurts my heart to say, I would also tell my mother that the unhealed parts of her hurt me deeply. When she was angry with me, I wasn’t always sure which version of her I was facing. The little girl that felt invisible, the woman that feared abandonment, they were the spiciest versions of her.
I met both of them often. I remember them greeting me at the door many moons ago, completely enraged, deep in their Sagittarius bag. I had just gotten home from work around 11:00 in the morning after working overnight. I wasn’t able to run home & take my children to school at 7:30. I didn’t want to ask my mom for another favor, but I did by asking her to drop my babies off to school. My mother was ready to unleash the heat of the Fire Nation on me. Her tone on the phone? I knew what was up. I ended the call with my shoulders sitting at my ears.
At 11:01 a.m., my mother pounced on me from the walk-in. I contemplated running for my life, but I was way too tired. I also felt way too grown to be running from my mother. She asked me what kind of mother misses taking her children to school. At 11:02 a.m., she told me that if I made better choices in men, maybe I wouldn’t be in this position.
I didn’t have the capacity to answer those questions. The little girl inside of me, the one that inherited my mother’s invisibility, stepped up first. She told my mother that I was the kind of mom that had just watched her patient’s life slip through her fingers. A nursing student my age coded six times that shift.
The kind of mother that pushed over one hundred pounds of code cart weight from one side of the unit to the other in less than thirty seconds. I performed CPR in the elevator bay while trying to transport our patient to ICU. As the elevator doors opened, I squeezed onto the bed desperately providing chest compressions while the respiratory therapist ambu-bagged her beside me. There was no hope in his eyes. No hope to hold onto.
Later, in my charting, I had to explain why someone so young left this earth. My hands shook while I wrote, I couldn’t believe how quickly life changed within this chamber I called my job & how quickly we were encouraged to move past it. My innie ended her day leaving the morgue, full of guilt. My outie drove home singing along with the radio.
After the little girl inside of me finished speaking, the grown woman in me stepped forward too. Voice shaking, on the verge of complete rage & tears, I asked my mother how she could love me so much but hurt me so easily. Why couldn’t she see I was hurting the moment she opened the door, when I could feel her pain from miles away when life made things challenging for her. I was calling for my mother to see me.
After that conversation I sat on my bed unable to nap before school dismissal, replaying everything in my head. I realized I had just gone to war with someone I loved immensely & I was officially tired of it. Before ending our conversation, I told my mother that I refused to continue being the recipient of the unhealed parts of her pain.
I think my mother realized then that I was just as powerful as she was because I came from her. As an adult, I was going to hold her accountable for her actions.
That day changed our relationship. Healing is a legacy too.
Over the last few years, I’ve made amends with both of my parents. My mother operated from the space she grew into. She inherited invisibility too. The woman I am today would rock my mother the same way I now rock families through birth. I would tell her sweet & spicy Sagittarian soul that she was safe with me. All the beautiful versions of her were safe with me. I truly wish she could see how beautiful she is to me now.
Right now, I’m sitting amongst my forest of plant babies. My watch hasn’t even given me a sleep score for the past two days because no sleep data has been recorded. I’m really surprised it hasn’t alerted me to go to sleep. I attended two incredible births on Lag BaOmer, leaving home the night it began to unfold, returning the following day. I’m proud of myself. Truly proud that four years ago, I believed in myself enough to build my business, even if it was founded in complete delusion. I am grateful for the opportunity to rebuild my life.
I’ve dusted off my nursing license, the one I questioned renewing back in October. On Christmas Day, I was extended the invitation to become a Birth Assistant. I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside The GOAT. Seeing doulas doula from this perspective has been too dope. The ones that timidly enter the birthing space, I grab their hand immediately. You better get in here, girl!
We all get excited when a doula walks into the room, the puzzle feels complete. It makes me happy that I get to exist in this space. Having my back rubbed while I’m giving hip squeezes is a major privilege. I have no shame admitting that me, the carrier of all things, really loves being loved on too.
If you’re still here, thank you. I share these pieces of myself because I want you to know that I’m no different than you. I’ve had to challenge people I love deeply. I’ve had to meet the many versions of myself too. I encourage you to give those parts of yourself space to heal. Let them ask the scary questions. Allow them to stand on their worth. Let them unpack their feelings without shame or judgment. All those versions of you deserve love too.
I pray this month brings blessings on blessings. And the insatiable desire to be present for every version of your becoming.