I am finally feeling like myself after covid. I had no idea how much trauma we had all been through with politics and misinformation and a pandemic! Personally, I thought it was right and just to throw up my hands sometimes. Mostly, though, I ranted out loud or internally. My guts felt like they were just scrambled half the time and literally I can see now how my intestines if you could have seen them, were twisted and clogged, occasionally on the verge of bursting out of my skin because I could no longer retain my anger, my despair and my outrage.

Then, I succumbed to depression and loneliness and isolated within my own valley of melancholy.

I let my hair, my weight and my interests go, in style. It was my superficial way of responding in kind to the onslaught of meanness and hopelessness. My smile vanished. Although you would see it on zoom, fake and with extreme effort. I tried so hard to stay positive. I suppressed years of personal trauma and unresolved issues into one presidential race and term that was out to destroy us and has cracked open all the wounds for all of us to see.

STAT we need healing. STAT.

And then, I did some spiritual work. I went deep. Past experiences and into changing my perspective, slowly. I thought I had done this work before but there were new, hidden cuts, stabs and lesions attached to my very soul body. I visited them and then in shock, withdrew. I would step a little closer and then back off. I would process and then deny their existence. The dance of fire and ash and pain. The dark night.

But a survivor fights for their life, a warrior goddess gets through it. Never alone but by myself. No one can do this work for you. Like recovery, you must find the place where you realize you are responsible and no one else, for your metamorphosis. Ultimately, it came down to love, acceptance and compassion, for me. A new level of identity.

And then, I took notice of my outsides for what seemed as if it was the first time. By finding power in the journey through, I expect more of myself now.