The past 16 months were shaped by the death of a father who never made things right, forcing me to carry unresolved anger, quiet grief, and the loss of what never was while still staying functional and self-supporting. Instead of breaking or romanticizing it, I became clearer, more embodied, more selective, and more alone at times because I stopped tolerating what costs me my nervous system.

There is a version of pregnancy people know how to talk about. The one where your body becomes a home, and that idea is supposed to feel beautiful almost immediately.Maybe that is true for some people.But that has not really been my experience. Or at least not fully.

The baby was okay. So why, several hours later, was I sitting on a bench by the ocean crying like something terrible had happened?

A check-in about what it looks like when anxiety takes over, even when you “know the tools”. What’s been hard lately, and what I’m doing to be a little kinder to myself.