“I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.”

― Georgia O'Keeffe

I came across this quote the other day, and it could not have landed more perfectly. Like a sharp thud. Straight to the heart. The way it feels when you get thumped a little too hard in the back but not hard enough to be winded. The initial scary feeling followed immediately by relief as you realize you are fine, maybe better than before now that a rib has been shifted into a better place.

This quote by Georgia O’Keeffe sums up my summer experience so far. On the West Coast, where I live, we tend to get cooler, more temperate summers, but this one has been beyond what is reasonable. Many, many, many(!) days of 16°C & foggy – August especially has been living into it’s nickname “Fogust”. Not to mention the rudely windy spring that preceded it. And all summer long, people have been coming through town and exclaiming, “What a nice break. It has been so hot all summer.” 

Just enjoying a nice summery dog walk.

Weather aside, over the last few years, I have been in, what feels like, hiding. Hiding from myself and others. It started when my mom got sick midway through 2021. She was diagnosed with brain cancer (for the second time) and the prognosis was bleak. I went into survival mode. I took a leave from my full-time job (shout out to folks at Origin for being the best people to work alongside in such dismal times). I spent a few months going back and forth between my home and my parents, which entails a three-hour drive through two winding mountain passes, mostly out of cell reception. After a while, I stopped going home entirely – the experience of returning to normal life felt too jarring – and I moved fully into the murphy bed in my mom’s office, helping care for her and being her advocate as she slipped away. But I digress. The experience of caring for my dying mother is one for another time.

This is all simply background on how I ended up here. In a place where I feel a little lost, or unmoored. Unsure of how to have fun. Trying to find my way, not necessarily back to my old self, but toward a new version of me. I was texting with a friend about this feeling recently, whinging on about feeling like a gremlin. And she put it so perfectly… “Sometimes we need those periods to eventually come out slowly on the other side. And the other side will be new too, not like it was. And it will be fun again, just different.”

For years now, I have isolated myself out of necessity, shielding myself from the people who care about me, staying numb to the ups as much as the downs. Slowly, over the last six months or so, I have started to feel the lightness again. And it has felt hard! You’d expect the return of lightness to feel, well, light. Instead, it felt heavy to notice how lightness is so foreign, like a reminder that you have been struggling.

Long story short, this is a very vulnerable post – a reminder that we never know what other people are going through, even those closest to us. As someone who has almost always been outwardly high functioning, it feels scary to share this. Now everyone will know – but isn’t that the beauty of it? In ripping off the bandaid of creating this newsletter, I have decided to lean into the hot tingle of relief when you realize it will all be okay, anyway.

Thank you for reading and being part of this exploration of sharing and oversharing.