Anami Grace | Made Up Life

I had thrown up butterscotch pudding in my bed. It was my first time ever having pudding, and I loved it. I probably ate too much of it and threw up in my sleep. And my mother took me to the laundromat with all of my bedding while I was still sick, and forced me to wash it with her. As a punishment for having been sick.

Listen y’all. I was somewhere between 4-5, I’d already lost my father (my more attuned parent) because he scooted right on out of my life when I’d been removed by CPS. I’d moved in with my step-dad, my mother was pregnant with my younger sibling, and I’d lost everything and was unteathered in the laundromat and I learned that I was unloveable while sick.

Therefore I hated being sick. I hated myself first so that I couldn’t face anymore rejection from my mother.

The tragedy of that statement. And the corresponding pit in my stomach and lump in my throat. I wish I had words for it, but there are only sobs.

So every morning when I first look at my beautiful face in the mirror, I say the vows I once said to my ex-husband. To myself.

And this morning as I felt a little scratch in my throat as I said them out loud to myself I put an extra emphasis on in sickness, and in health. I promise to cherish you Anami Grace. For you are the only human body I possess at the moment.

So I let my human body sleep in a little this morning, took my day a little slower, and moved the energy of sickness through my body, reminding her how much I love her.

I made her chicken congee with sweet potatoes, I put on the comfiest clothes, and I doted myself extra today because I have a lot of time to make up for – for all of the times I drank my way through being sick to avoid meeting my own shadow of needing care and not receiving it.

When I was first married and before my celiac diagnosis I used to get the stomach flu a LOT. (Shocking, really.) And I remember being so sick I could barely hold up my own head and my husband threw a pillow at my face and tossed my bible in the bathroom so I could “find comfort in the word of god”.

I’d been so lonely, and marriage was supposed to be the cure for that. I’d held that disappointment and it was reinforced that it wasn’t safe for me to be sick.

For all of the times that I was angry with my kids for being sick, because I was afraid to meet myself through the human experience of being ill and needing to be cared for.

And then all of the times I had to miss work, fearing that I’d lose my job, freedom, and the outlet to shine.

It’s all so complicated to have trauma and parent myself and my kids at the same time. Right?

It’s always the primary parent of the kids that ends up paying for all of the consequences when you’re parenting with traditional Christian values. That way you get the extra punishment for needing to make money for your family too.

Wild really.

So, today I’ve said my vows to myself several times, every time I turned the corner to the bathroom, I’d say: I love you Anami Grace. Through sickness. Through Health. I am devoted to your care for the rest of your life.

I said it to my water, I said it to my soup, I said it to my jello, I said it to my popsicle. I said it as I worked with my fascia and my lymphatic system. I said it in the shower as I washed my hair & body, I said it as I dried myself off, I said it as I put on my clothes. I said it as I did my somatic movements, and as I cooked myself what sounded okay.

Devoted to the experience of being sick with Anami Grace. For all of the times she needed my care and didn’t have it, I became the mama she needed because my love for her is scorched in my soul as an unbreakable vow of devotion.

And. Y’all. That’s why I do this work. So that you can have the you – you needed when you were tiny and learned it was unsafe to need.

May you become your own medicine through sickness and health.

Anyway, love and light to you all. Take care! Bye!