Journal entry:

If I close my eyes, what age do I go back to?

Usually I go back to age six.

But today as I close my eyes, I am 22, alone, crying, New Year’s Eve, 1984.  Though— not quite alone.  I am pregnant with Anna.  I am scared, crying, in a fetal position on the mattress on the floor.  It is midnight and I hear fireworks.  By making a choice to keep my child, I have created chaos in my family. And I am alone, in a weird room in a weird house with roommates I don’t know.

Though not quite alone.

The color yellow is prominent.

The color yellow helps activate the memory, encourage communication, enhance vision, build confidence, and stimulate the nervous system. [source]

I believed then that by being myself, I hurt people.

What I say to that 22 year old, alone but not quite alone, on the mattress in that dark room now is—

You made the right choice.  By yourself.  You don’t need to thank anyone.  You don’t need to be indebted to anyone.  YOU made the decision.  A decision that made your mother stagger…

Trust yourself.  Somehow you survive.  The impossible is not impossible.  I’M POSSIBLE.  Inside you is the greatest gift.  A child that grows to a young woman who is deserving to live a life untethered.  

Anxiety, fear– all is survivable.  And those times you have felt done with life- you were not done but simply evolving.   You were so young, with no tools.  The child inside you will grow up to be celebrated for her decisions…  

[I want my children to be free FREE FREE FREE of guilt for living their chosen lives.]

Her grief became your guilt.  Your grief can be her release.