My mind has been inundated with swirling thoughts around friendship and dating which I don’t care to share about here, which is why I’ve been so silent.
I felt like I had nothing new to say. I fall into the trap of waiting for inspiration to come to me to work on my creative practice. Then I remembered I’m on the cusp of finishing my doula certification.
I catch myself often saying that I’m not sure where I’ll take this certification as a way to ease the nerves of officially jumping into something new or to soften the risk (and sadly to ease the excitement) of it all.
What if I don’t actually like it? What if I never find a client? If I’m so passionate about this now, what if the passion fizzles out?
It’s all an experiment. My life is an experiment. Telling myself this helps.
Downplaying the excitement of newness I’m bringing into my life is how I protect myself from disappointment and learn to be ok if things don’t go to plan. For whatever reason though, I’ve continued my Postpartum Doula certification process because I took it as slow as possible., holding no concrete expectations of it.
Tomorrow will be one year after I signed up.
I also know that going through with this has been an act of following my intuition and the thrill hasn’t worn off. Imposter syndrome has definitely been by my side though.
The more people I share those doubts with—mostly other doulas— have luckily brought me more support and reassurance.
I struggle to know what hard skills I can bring into a lot of what I do. This is balanced with a lot of the soft skills I know I do have that are really important, special, and not everyone can access easefully.
As someone who doesn’t want kids and isn’t going into this work to be invested in caring for kids, but invested in offering emotional support for the birthing person and their partner(s) while living in a space that ignores caregivers (whether a child is the end result or not), I keep wondering how difficult it’ll be to find people who will find value in what I offer.
I did find someone through my pole dancing community.
When you know a relationship is going to work, you just know. We are what each other was looking for.
They’re giving me space to put what I’ve learned and who I naturally am as a nurturer into practice and I’m giving them my presence while they navigate their new lives as people who can’t fully be independent and active in the same way they have been and grieve that part of themselves.
I’m meeting them at their death cycle as I wean off my year of multiple death cycles.
Our death cycles are intersecting thanks to the birth of a tiny human who is so fresh and new they have the wrinkly hands of an 80 year old.
We start today, almost a year to the date of me signing up for something that perked my ears for a while. 12 hours of it and I’ll then be jumping into birthing my practice and seeing what this next cycle brings.
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SENSORY SAFETY
The song(s)/artist I’ve replayed the past week to calm me down
Caroline Polachek’s entire Desire, I Want To Turn Into You album
The media I watched the past week to calm me down
Ramy Youssef’s comedy special was a nice mix of humor, human-ness and calling out the fucked up-ness of the genocide in Palestine
The activity I did the past week to calm me down
Enjoying my balcony for the first time thanks to the first week of great weather in Chicago