WOMEN + HEALING // Those two topics and their tie to one another are the simplest summary to describe the purpose that burns inside me. So it makes sense that it’s what I both create for others and need for myself. But the obvious isn’t always so until it’s done. The whole hindsight and clear seeing thing. So I had no idea that this week of caring for my best friend in her beautifully fragile newly postpartum state would be my healing too, and that she would be my woman to see me through it. But I see clearly now that is exactly what it was.
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Each hour under the warm weight of newbornness, the sweet sound of freshness, and the feminine rawness of transitioning, I remembered. I remembered things from my own postpartum time that I had not been able to conjure up before. All the pain of my aching body. The panic of a screaming need. The fear of health slipping farther and farther away. The fog of more than just new beginnings and hormones, but also a brain riddled with infection. Both of my postpartum periods were the sickest I had ever been in the long history of my chronic illness. I had neither the support I needed nor the answers to know I would make it to the other side. Plus, I had a baby. A life to connect to and care for. And it was just all so painful, and scary, and out of control. Overwhelm and aching on repeat.
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So each hour here I was triggered again and again as the memories finally flooded in. It was an opportunity now to grieve and acknowledge, but also to heal. As I remembered I felt the feelings and then I made tea not just for my friend but also for the postpartum woman inside of myself. Each herbal sitz bath, for us both. Every nourishing meal to feed us all. I cared for her, and me, and all the women. And I felt the healing easing in. By last night when my friend snapped this picture of us my open wounds were feeling more like sacred scars.
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I always say as I heal, you heal. And that surely happened here this weekend. Now I’m ready to head back to my own sweet girls. And to enjoy where I’m at now with my health and all the wellness I’ve created in my life. And I’m so damn grateful for women and the healing we all can bestow on one another.
