It was a Thursday.
The ground was crisp and solid, the air, fresh, clear. One moon rise after welcoming her earth-side, I sank back into that place. Dark and murky, frigged and still.
Her hair the color of chocolate, soft against my nose, her eyes, bright as the sun. I held that baby skin to skin, breathing her sweetness deep into my lungs, willing it to release. Begging. But it did not.
She wasn't the first of my womb to paralyze me, she wasn't the only one I would hold in the dark of night, covered in my own tears. Try as I might, the anxiety crept. Try as I might, the depression settled. Try as I might, I would struggle to overcome something I had no control over.
And then, as I began to see the light, as the broken pieces of my soul found peace, and as that sweet girl neared the age of two, my own mother was taken from me.
The earth shifted, and I was back there again. Back in the murk and mire.
I'm on the other side, now - a side where I hear the beauty in a chirping bird, the side where I can laugh, smile, even a side where I can speak of Post-Partum Depression without the twisting of my gut.
And I find my heart tender for those fighting the fight.
I want to smother them with love, the fighters. I want to smother YOU with love. I want you to see that there is light. I want to tattoo on your heart, that in the darkest of dark, there is always hope.
You need a beacon? Let me be it. You ache to bring noise to the quiet? Let me rage. You want to know you aren't alone, even in the blackest of your thoughts? Hear me out - you. are. not.
You're not alone. You're not alone. You're not. alone.
Let me whisper it, allow me to scream it. Let me promise you, as you crawl through each day, weary and tired, you'll stand again. You'll walk and you'll run and your legs will have a strength money can't buy.
Okay? Okay.
Carry on fighting mamas, carry, right, on.
xo,
Ang