A Letter From My Future Self

Dear Helen,

You joke around about time being a colonial construct and here I am writing to you from the future as proof that time is in fact, foldable. I can’t get into the specifics of this because you chose to work with people and words instead of studying the quantum mechanics of time travel so I couldn’t provide a detailed answer even if you wanted one. (But no, there is no DeLorean involved)

I want to make this quick so let’s jump in, shall we? I want to thank you for the work that you are putting in at this stage of your life. I know that feeling your way through the loss of your mom is quite unlike anything you’ve navigated so far. Remember the time you (or do I say I? or we? LOL) doubled over while you were chopping vegetables for dinner and Etta James was streaming in on the speaker? Oh, how we wept and wailed as our cries were washed over by the crooning of Etta and our tears dripped onto the linoleum. You still got up and finished cooking dinner though didn’t you? Yes babe, you cooked the fuck outta that dinner.

There are more of those moments coming and I want need to thank you because the processing, healing, and shifting you are doing right now is SO powerful and will lead you to necessary spaces that need to be reorganized and will cultivate a strength and faith that will bring you here to inhabit the time and space I am in right now. I can’t wait for you to arrive and I know that you also desperately want to arrive, but I have to tell you to pump the fuckin’ brakes love.  You need to soak in every moment of being in this physical world. Even the shit ones that you would rather fast forward, forget, or sleep through. Know that the entire journey of life is a process of becoming and the struggle is just as important as the blossoming. Don’t waste it. Sit with the uncomfortableness that comes with inhabiting human bodies and feel it and then let it pass through you. Don’t hold on to it longer than the moment that it visits with you but for the love of God don’t run from it because it will not break you. You said it yourself, “I do myself a disservice by choosing to not sit with my hard feelings”.

Yes, I will quote you to you in order to solidify my point. Checkmate, Queen.

I feel so much compassion for you. I know you are also preparing for the loss of Grandma and the idea of being in the world without her AND your mom terrifies you. I know you ask yourself this question in the stillness of the night: If the women that put you back together are no longer there to do so, then will you remain broken?

I know this is why you have to sleep with a Netflix show playing or a podcast right now. The silence leads you to questions that you aren’t prepared to answer because you have no context for them. I have context for the questions you drown out and the answer is:

you will be broken but in your brokenness, you will find a new strength. The people around you, specifically your mama and grandma, have been planting medicine on your path and in you since before you were born. You only need to look backwards and find the places they put it. You have to remember things from long ago. You are now in a time where you need to prepare for the journey ahead where you are a woman broken open with the capacity to self-heal and you are now the one planting medicine for others to find. Don’t you see, my love? You were always meant to make it through this. Your resiliency has been planned and prepared for before you even entered this world. Trust that.

It will be okay.

You will be okay.

Oh and another thing, I know that this business of being broken open and becoming sounds like serious business but please do remember to laugh and indulge in the simple things. Play your music loud and dance when the notes want to move your bones. Indulge in the simplest things like starlight and good coffee and smile more, because you need that darling. Go and fall in love with the world with all it’s chaos and beauty (and maybe even with a man ayeeee). Don’t worry about the pathway ahead, it will reveal itself to you as you start preparing. The most important part of your journey is always the part that you are in right now.

Once again, thank you – you have done good by me. I am going to offer some tobacco to the water for your journey and I suggest you do the same not only for yourself but for the versions of yourself that came before you. We need it.

 

With love,

 

Helen K