Episode 9- Babetta

In this heartfelt interview, Babetta shares her journey through profound grief, love, and self-discovery. She discusses the impact of loss, the importance of self-love, and how nature and art have helped her heal and find gratitude amidst life's challenges.

Music video- https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOgkkqJkUf7/?igsh=aTUwenp5Y3FuY2o=

Her Doula IG: Beside Death, Life

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Hey, this is Mandy and Crystal with Brief and Gratitude Podcast. We're here today with Bob Edda. Just to let you guys know that we started this podcast. I did because of the loss of my son. And when I was looking to find people that would understand me, I really found some podcasts that were very helpful. And so I reached out to Crystal and she felt the calling too. And so we started this podcast. Um Beta is a birth and postpartum and most recently end-of-life care doula. And she we met online and she is going to tell us her story today. So welcome and thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Awesome. Thanks, Crystal and Mandy. Thanks for having me. Love what you're doing. And I wanted to be a part of that. And today I'm going to share about the grief and gratitude associated with the loss of a significant relationship. So not necessarily due to end of life. Grief comes in all kinds of situations. So just to give a little bit of a backstory to this relationship and why a big reason why it was so significant. At the end of 2020, I lost rather suddenly my father of my children who are now in their 20s and he was estranged. We were divorced. And within a few weeks later, my grandmother, who raised me, who was my mother by adoption, also suddenly she was in her 80s, but it was not expected. And it was 2020, and the world was like it was crazy for all of us in a bunch of different ways. And uh I had been living in Los Angeles at the time and I couldn't take it. It was just there was just too much noise, if you will. And I had a friend living in the mountains in Big Bear, Big Bear Lake, California. It's about two hours east of LA. It's quiet in a mountain town. And she said, just come up here. And I'm like, what am I gonna do for work? She's like, I don't know, work at a bar. Like doula work was not there, but you could work at a car. So I got a job at a brewery, and it was actually really, really wonderful for the state that I was in because I was walking in the woods or at the lake every day. And then I had this job that didn't have the weight and responsibility of what doula work brings, and it was really social. And you know, people are in there to have a good time. So I had the silence and the solitude that I needed. And then I also had a little bit of fun, and it was really beautiful time. And I was had just turned 40. I had always wanted more children. I have two children, 25 and 22 now, but I had never found anyone else that I wanted to have children with. And I had had my tubes tied after my second child was born. So I I'd made some pretty solid decisions when I was really young. So I was 23 when I had my tubes tied, and the doctor was like, I don't feel right about this. I'm like, you don't know my husband. So really, it was like I was trying not to get trapped in this relationship that I knew was not a good relationship. Trapped any further than I was. Living in Los Angeles, it's really hard to find a good guy, in my opinion. So um, here I am in the mountains, and I had already made peace. I I turned 40, I think it was 41. I'd already made peace with the fact that I wasn't having any more children. The guy was not going to show up and I'd magically have new children by you know 45. And being in the birth uh sphere, I was very accustomed to older women having children. So it wasn't like that crazy. But at the same time, I was like, I bet I'm not gonna rush a relationship, maybe like this doesn't make sense. So, needless to say, when Prince Charming started showing up at this brewery, happened to live down the road from me in the neighborhood. And over the course of several months, we were having just like conversations at the brewery. And I was, I hadn't felt this in a really long time, and I just had like the flutters. I was so I was like flushed. I felt like a schoolgirl. I had a total crush on this guy. And one evening we took it out of the brewery and we're like, hey, I would go on night walks. I have a husky and we like lots of stars in the mountains out there. So we would walk at night. I was like, yeah, sure, like I'll meet you. We'll go on this walk. And so a relationship bloomed, and very innocently, like there wasn't, I didn't, I wasn't looking the first conversation we had, which was kind of quick because we're older. You know, it's like, okay, what do you do? What do you want to do with the rest of your life? And he's three years older than I am, and he was like, Well, I want to get married and have children.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I was like, it's Prince Jarman wants to have children.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Maybe he wants to have children with me. Well, I can still do it. This is, you know, let's do this. And um, that kind of like honeymoon fantasy talk, if anybody remembers that, you know, just like maybe too soon talking about the rest of your life with this person really started some deep conversating over our relationship at a very young point, you know, before three months had even passed. And around six months, it was, hey, why don't you move in with me? And I kind of like wasn't sure. I had already seen some red flags that because all of this other gooey wonderfulness was, you know, this love bombing, if you want to call it, and and my response to that, I was like, oh, whatever. Those, those are everybody, I'm crazy too. You know, we all have our issues. So before you know it, I'm maybe eight, nine months in, something like that. I want to say, yeah, about nine months in and moved in. And within weeks, we got my tubes untied. And part of that was me saying to him, like, hey, you know, I'm I won't be considering this past this birthday, you know, if you want to do this. I've never had someone that I would consider this for. Anyways, big decision. And it was a gnarly surgery, and it was really, really painful. And then I became an absolute nightmare of a person for myself because all of a sudden I had whatever those sticks are, and you're checking like if you're ovulating that month. And uh, even though we had a great sex life, sex became something else, at least to me. And of course, that bled into our relationship. And the red flags or the patterns that I had seen previously really kind of showed up a little bit harder and a little more frequently. I don't think he was emotionally capable of having a mature relationship, especially one that was considering to have children, where both people are kind of there, you know, showing up every day and facing the struggles. And that weighed greatly on my heart because I had just I had made these amends with myself that I wasn't going to have children anymore or any more children. Fallen for this guy who's like, come here, come here, come here. And we get my tubes and tied, and now he's abandoning me, like running off down the mountain. He also had a place in Los Angeles. And um I had told him just to like backtrack a little but also give you some of the things I was working with. Like, I know my core wounds from my childhood trauma. And I had told him in the beginning, I'm like, these are the three things I need. I just need, please don't do this. Don't abandon me, don't lie to me, and don't keep me a secret. And those are the three exact things that happened. And some would say, and some can'ts, it's like, oh, they're going to mirror your, you know, your core wounds so that you have this opportunity to work on them if you want to. But I had also been in other relationships where those people didn't do those things to me. I I was okay. So this was this was very traumatizing. So three, four months after living together, or maybe it was six guys, I don't remember the timeline, but it wasn't it wasn't super. I decided to leave. Um, and that wasn't, you know, that was after many conversations with him where um things were being dismissed, you will, like my concerns and kind of this gaslighting, you don't know what you're talking about. I didn't leave, I remember that, but then he'd remember it, you know, whatever. The confusion that leaves you thinking that you're crazy. And I decided that it was going to be healthier for me to understanding that I saw my childhood trauma stuff coming up, it was going to be healthier for me to do that in a different container. And that this did not, this was not the person that was going to help me through that. And that was really fucking sad. Really sad. It took me a while after my ex-husband and my mother had died so closely together to say what I felt my loss was with them. And it's so broad, and yet it's so deep. It was a strange divorced husband, it was an older woman that, you know, wasn't going to live another 20 years. But what I lost, the feeling was I called it that I lost my sense of home. Like those are the two people. My mother was this home that I could always go to. And my ex-husband, crazy ass, was my children's and I's home. Like he was he was one of those preparers. We lived on a mountain and had a cave and have five years' supply of like Mormon food for a while. You know, and like really expensive hiking gear. And I knew that I could always call him if you know, if the world was whatever. So I had lost my home. And I think part of my shit that I brought into this relationship was also like my grief that I hadn't totally processed yet. I think it'd only been a year or so, and I was like, ooh, home. Ooh, somebody that wants to be my husband and have children again. Like, oh, I can make a family. I can have this cocoon that I feel like I just lost. So at the end of the day, it wasn't just about the guy. It was really about me and where I was in my grief journey, my growing up journey. I'd lost a significant amount of my other family members prior to this. And these were kind of like, yeah. And then a few months later we got back together. I I think I reached out about something I'd left. Girls don't do that. So I was like, um, I know what's gonna happen there. And it did. I, you know, a month and a half, two months maybe, same behavior. I was like, what am I doing? And actually, that first like three months of having been broken up, I was on, I was on a high. I was like to myself, I'm like, oh girl, I'm so proud of you. You're so strong. You know, you're not gonna take that shit. You deserve better. And the second time, wow, that's I fell apart. I also ended up with a neck injury and bedridden for like 20-something days, and I thought I was I felt like like life was over. And um, not in a depressing, like suicidal way, but in a a weight of like, did I just give my last years of possibly having children with someone? Like, I now have this scar in my body, not just you know, my heart and on my body from doing this physical thing for us that anyway, it was really gnarly. I made a music video, wrote a song. I really like to use creativity to process things, and didn't talk to him for like 16 months. We ended up talking again, spend part of a road trip caravanning with him, which was crazy. And again, it was like he he was the master of, oh, come on, this magical life. And I'm like, oh I wasn't as naive this time. I was like, oh and you know, a couple weeks after the road trip, back in regular life, we used to make, or I made the comment, like, we're really good at play pretend, but we're not really good at actually doing real life together. And so I walked away and I've done something I've never had to do, like blocked his number. It's not so he doesn't contact me, so I don't reach out to him. So this road trip was this last summer, and this had been going on for you know three years, and it's been when do I talk about the gratitude part?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Well, that's that's a great question. I think, and it would actually um I think would it be okay to ask you a few questions now just to make sure I I just want to make sure too I understand the timeline to move during COVID. So it was like 2020 time, like around there. Actually, oh go ahead. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

I actually had been living in Los Angeles, COVID happened. My grandmother mother was older living out on a farm in Oklahoma. I went to Oklahoma and spent most of 2020 there. A client called me at the end of 2020 and I was like, please come back. We want we'll take you in our home. And I went out because money, you know, and then I wasn't in LA very long. I get the call that from my daughter that my ex-husband's died, her father, and then and a couple weeks later.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

So you have these two extreme losses, deaths occur and end up moving out, right? And working makes perfect sense to me when you said working at the brewery. It's kind of that that would feel so good, right? Because the work you were doing was so deep. And when we're doing work that requires a lot of us mentally, emotionally, we you don't have the capacity, right? Even to grieve. So you do that, and then within that space, that's how you met this man that you then really you gave yourself to, right? You like you had hope and you opened up to. And then that was uh off and on three year period of time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Um, and I mean, I have plenty of questions for you, but if you could, unless you have anything now, Mandy, go into the gratitude part because you know, as you'd mentioned before we began this, that wasn't right away. So how did you get there?

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Well, I was I was just gonna say that the relationship after so much grief makes sense. Totally makes sense because you, like you said, you lost your home, you lost your support system, and this person's there, like you said, to take you. So totally makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Thank you. Well, I would say first and foremost, and something as a gratitude piece that I've had to like feed myself uh in crumbs this whole time, is how grateful I am for that cocoon that I did have while I had it. Not only in the mountains on my own doing whatever for a year, but then also with him, because I think we all know that we're we don't like step into a bad relationship. You know, we step into a glorious relationship and things go different directions. Um we had a lot of wonderful, wonderful times together. So I would say that was my biggest thing that I still have to hold on to because I've never been someone that says I wasted time or regretted time, but that was definitely when I was thinking as a female with our beautiful biological clocks, considering children again, that was something I had to work with. I was like, it wasn't a waste of time, but that's definitely something that was like you wasted your last of your fertile years, if you will. Um, but I'm also really grateful and I'm grateful every day for the children I already have. So that was something that I also chose to remind myself of, even though they're grown up and moved away. I I went through that. I went through grieving my kids leaving the nest, um, but not like I kind of hear other people. I wasn't sad or mad that they left. I was very involved in their lives. I think that makes a difference. Um, I didn't feel like I missed their lives. Um, but I did feel I did have a period of time where I was like, I'm not a mom anymore, or what do I do now? I'm not raising children anymore. It had been my my identity. So that was another thing that I was kind of grieving. But in all of this, and with the gratitude of choosing, it was my choice to leave the relationship, was that I was choosing my health and well-being, which I'm grateful for. I was choosing a hard choice so that I could work through these things that were brought up. So I'm grateful for the the trauma that I realized was still in my body, my childhood stuff of like being abandoned, being kept a secret, being lied to. I thought those things were fine. I thought I was doing great. But so people come, I believe that, whether it's a cashier you talk to or the bad relationship that you had. We have these times with people that are for reasons. So I'm also really grateful to that relationship because I had stuff I need to look at.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

And how long did it take you to you didn't really have time to grieve your ex-husband or your grandmother because you went right into this relationship. What at what point did you embrace your grief um or actually grieve?

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Yeah. Um well, the thing that I thought was odd about my children's father is I didn't have any feelings about that loss for about a year outside of my feelings for my children and how they were dealing with that. I didn't have my own person. He had been a not very great guy to me. And so I didn't know I was going to be sad about my loss of him, but I did. And I think I was grieving, working on grieving that in this relationship, but it was the end of this relationship when I really had the opportunity to see that I was sad about this person who was abusive, which is kind of a crazy thing. Who nobody talks about that? It's like this disenfranchised greed. I couldn't call anybody and be like, I'm really sad that I don't have Jeff anymore. And they're like, Are you are we talking about the same person? So I think that's a it's it's something that I will continue to work on because I have children dealing with it. And they had a strange relationship, and it was, you know, they're still working through that. And with my mother, grandmother, I have a sister left. She's she and I are really close. And I have just recently started to work on that with her and a therapist. And because there's some weird stuff around why she died that we don't need to go into this time, if you if you want a crazy story another time. But um, I do follow something that she told me. She had her firstborn and secondborn died by suicide. They can't confirm the first I'm my biological mother, and then her firstborn, her son. And I would say to her, I was like, How do you and she owned her own business. She had other children to live for. And I would say to her, I'm like, How do you get up, you know, and do every day? And of course she said, Well, I have these children to live for. And she goes, But I I just I have to to get up and put one foot in front of the other. So I still have to live, you know, and I still have to do the things that we all have to do in a day. And I try to make intentional space for silence and kind of working through my feelings without having the input. And I know how helpful podcasts are and books that we read on self-help and the therapist talking to us and talking to your family or friends, but I'm a big believer in outdoor time in nature and silence. Yeah, and that's what I was doing in Big Bear as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

And with that, when you speak of being outdoors, right? And so the connection you're able to make really with the the world we live in, right? Personally, do you find that is there spiritual beliefs behind your connection to nature, or what are your spiritual beliefs, if any? Because that's connected sometimes, right, to our grief or not where we believe people go or the things right, the things happen.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Um, I was raised in church, you know, Southern Baptist for a little while, Methodist, whatever, you know, your typical I'm from Oklahoma, like kind of rest belt religion, but I have never really connected in that way. I would say if I have anything, it's a spiritual connection really to just the natural order of things. Like, and I think that's why nature is so comforting to me, and also it's A little scary. Like every time I walk out into the woods by myself with my dog, I'm like, this is wild. And I think there's a part of being not feeling so safe, you know, in our bubbles at home, comforted by all of our things. I think there's a part of the wildness of nature that is in its own strange way really comforting. I don't have a, I'm always jealous of people that are like, oh, it's it's grasshopper, and I always know that's my mom or whatever. I don't have that. But I do have a lot of other different things. And they are typically, you know, bugs or birds. I had a really cute one I'll share. My son was dressed up as a cowboy for something the other night. And I'm sitting across from him in the room, and we have a bunch of guitars like on a guitar stand. His dad was a master musician, so is he, just like a wild musician. And I'm just sitting there listening to my son talking, and I'm looking at him in his western outfit that is not how he usually dresses. And in my thoughts, this is not out loud. I'm just like, wow, this I'm really grateful for this moment. What a wonderful opportunity I have to sit. And my 22-year-old son is talking to me. And and my son gets up to leave. And as soon as he closes the door, a guitar string plucked itself. He immediately said, Hi, Jeff. Like I didn't have to think about it. Was not a thought. I knew his dad was, you know, reaching out to me saying, I think that's pretty wild. So it wasn't a cricket.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

It was a guitar string.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

No, it's beautiful, right? Like it just was. You didn't, it wasn't a far-out thought. It wasn't an object that became the thing for you. It wasn't a, it wasn't created beforehand, but when it happened, you connected it.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

When we're looking at, because the story you share, right, is about an ex-partner. So it's someone that's still alive. I just would say, so you know, I'm a psychotherapist and um done a lot of work in the field, but many years ago, well, probably late 20s or so, I was going through a breakup and I remember feeling like, like I felt like I was literally gonna die, right? I was like, I don't know how I can survive this thing. And I had read somewhere, not at all in any of the education I'd had, I'd never seen this, but I found um this article about how the part of your brain that really lights up, right? Or experience when we have a heartbreak, right? It's the loss of a relationship. So it is as if it's death, right? And our brain responds to it and grieves it in the same way. So when, you know, there's some people I believe can almost make you feel silly for feeling as heartbroken as you are over such a loss. But you are experiencing a death and you are grieving whatever you believed it it was to be, right? And that person in your life, in some ways, I find can almost feel more challenging because they exist, but not for you, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Well, and that's why I was saying it was so I felt silly again, like a little girl or young lady who doesn't have boundaries, being like, I have to block you, and I'm not blocking them from reaching out, I'm trying to set up physical boundaries because they are still alive. I can reach out to them, and he replies, and he replies with the the love-bombing ooey gooey stuff, and I'm like, you know, yeah, I think it is really hard. You know, the idea of I mean, gratitude is is growth, and I really have to find discipline in my gratitude because I can I can put myself back a step, you know, with someone that is still here. I've listened to your other podcasts and I've heard other people talk about grief, and we say how nonlinear it is and how things pop up and things like what if? What if I had done this? What if I'd done that? I have a what if from my mom from 15 years ago that I ran by my sister the other day. I'm like, well, what if I did this? Do you think it would have changed the situation? The problem with our relationships when people are alive is we know that we could go, what if it?

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Um that's a really hard boundary to set. And it's a really a test to one self-regulation. We all have moments of weakness certain times, right? Some people say at night we're gonna have more moments of weakness. We're kind of settled in. Um, some people, if they have a drink, some people after a particular fight or a hard work day. But you also have to almost show yourself you love yourself more than lost. Your love is greater for yourself than reopening that, right? And that's really hard. And where we question, we think, oh, I got it. You know, I dealt with all my trauma, I know all my things, I'm picking healthy relationships. All these pieces come together, and all of a sudden we've given up that hard self-love that we built for ourselves for someone. Of course, he's gonna do the thing, right? And pull you in because guess what? You're amazing and great, and you provided all of these things. And he can be great and fun, but not have the depth or what you need, right? And so where you can go back and have fun, it even becomes less and less fun.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Um, so he's always gonna be there. Text away. I'm sure anytime you text, he's available, yeah, it's more so for you. Really loving yourself so much that you can take it to your music, like you said, take it to a height, take it to a journal, but to just really give yourself that love by not reaching out.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Yeah. And just like what you're talking about, giving myself that love, it is also a part the love I was seeking in this relationship, or that any of us seek from another person. Just like they say it's so a cliche, like you can't love someone else until you love yourself. And there's so much truth in that, and there's so much weight to that. Um, I have like, you know, these deep old abandonment issues that I can parade around and be confident, and I can love my children, and I can love outwardly, and I can do all these acts of love. But to love myself, even with the knowledge that no matter what the circumstances were, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter that my mom was young and you know, all this stuff. The wound is the same. It's like I was not wanted or wasn't kept or whatever. So I I am the only person that can give myself that love. You know, I can't get that from somebody else in a relationship.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Well, and it's hard to when you're a mom, because you are there for your kids and you're providing for your kids and making sure their mental health and think knowing how great they are, that you kind of just put yourself aside to take care of them. And so it is hard to prioritize yourself. But I think we need to normalize that more for sure.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Well, and I think actually that brings up a really good point. So another thing that I'm grateful for is that my beautiful, lovely, wonderful children are grown up and doing their own thing, and I get to support them here and there, but that I have time to do for me and give myself the acts of self-love. I mean, I've always kept up my hiking and my outdoor stuff, but just like you said, it's been mom. We put out a lot, and I'm having the opportunity now without a partner. I'm actually really loving it that I am all the effort, all the love, all the cooking, it's all for me. That's that's actually pretty amazing. In the beginning of my grief of my children growing up and growing away, going away, you know, the emptiness. Um, I was like, why should I cook for myself? There's nobody to sit at this table with me. I'm just gonna have to cook and clean it. It's all for me. And so there was a period of time where that was not satisfying to me. In fact, it was you know, it was a chore. And now I can't wait to do it. I I love making myself beautiful food. I love buying something nice for myself instead of for my kids. Yeah, I think there's a lot of single at any point in our lives. I think we have kind of I think the story is being rewritten, but I think we have missed opportunities to really embrace and be grateful for time that we have to ourselves to focus on ourselves and work on ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Absolutely. I think it's a I blame society for telling us a lot of stories, right? And that Disney, all of the things of what women should be seeking, right? The Snow White, the Zenderell, all of the things. And I found, you know, myself being almost 45, a lot of my friends in the same age range were not figuring it out until our 40s. And so, you know, I have a 16-year-old, and I'm always like, wow, I think she's gonna get it way before me. And I'm so excited for her to have her 20s and 30s, right? Hopefully, and actually embrace what you're talking about now, which I now get, but I'm like, shit, right? Half if I get a long life halfway through it, right? Like it's how beautiful when you realize, like, wow, this isn't a chore, and I'm excited to like lay out this spread for myself, throw on some good music, right? Do the cleaning, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Yeah, doing the cleaning. My daughter's 25. I just visited with her yesterday, and she is out of a breakup. Also, it was like fast love. Yeah, and he was he, they're so smart and beautiful, aren't they? She's like, Mom, I'm I was dating my dad, and all this stuff came up, and da-da-da. And so yesterday we were we were doing some things together, and then we got back to the house. She's like, I ordered some books, and one had showed up in the mail, and it was, you know, some whatever philosophy, self-help, on choosing partners, doing for yourself. And she had cleaned her darling space and sent me a picture the night before of her like Phantom of the Opera book and her glass of wine and her, you know, and her music she was playing.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

And I was like, yes, living her best life at twenty. No, that's five. That's beautiful. And I think that's what right our even generation can provide to our kids, or at least recognize within our kids. I didn't even give it to my 16-year-old. I'm like, shit, you're still teaching me stuff about relationships. I right, I get it, and it's amazing. They're very forward thinking and I think rewriting what we've been told.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

I love hearing your gratitude. You sound so grateful for all the things. Um, but I'm just wondering, like, how did that show up for you? Or when did that show up for you?

SPEAKER_02 34:27

I would still say in pieces, but I would, I would say it was the time that I made the after connecting with him for the second time for about a month and a half or two, and making this. I had already written this song. My my son's friend produced it. I had my kids go out and shoot it in the uh I'll send you guys a link. Please do. We need to, yeah, please do. It's immediately yeah, it's really campy and fun because he had my boyfriend. Our our little thing was like till death, you know. I think it was even popular online for a little bit. Like we dressed up as husband, uh, bride and a groom for Halloween. And so this music video is playing on that, this song of like till death, but with these conditions, right? That you don't make it there. But the idea and the the end of it is ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And it's this, you know, and that's the the phoenix, but it was me realizing like the death of this relationship was going to have to die hard so that I could come out of it. And I was really depressed for the first time since I I want to say since I was like a teenager, maybe even. It was a strange feeling. I didn't really know what to do with it. I am someone who get gets up and puts one foot in front of the other, and but then I also had this neck injury at this time. And so I was in bed, my daughter came up to take care of me. So there I am. I'm like, okay, I'm wow, look at this. I I do have a daughter and how grateful I am here. She is coming to take care of me. But I didn't feel like getting up and doing anything. And I didn't have little kids at home that I had to get up and do anything for. So that gratitude took a few months after that second kind of breakup with him, where I I'm a I'm I'm a loner, but I didn't want to do anything with anyone. I didn't want to, I didn't want to go out with friends, I didn't want to have a phone call. I walked in the woods every day. I wasn't going to work. I had the opportunity because of where I was and so forth to not have to do those things. You know, depression begets depression. It's really hard to get out of that role. And so the gratitude. I actually know this isn't necessarily something that has to be done, and not everybody gets this opportunity. Thank you for asking this question. It's a really good one now that I think of it. I left the mountain. I thought, you know what? I had designed this life that I was going to have up here on this mountain, and it's not going to happen here anymore, and I can't be here. I don't want to be here. And so I actually put myself in a kind of hard decision. I moved down and stayed with my kids for a couple of months without work, without my own place. It was actually really, I could have felt ashamed. I could have felt a lot of things and not eventually gotten that gratitude. But I I think for me, taking myself out of the physical situation and kind of throwing myself into a situation where I had to do something. On the mountain, I didn't have to do anything. I was just like, I can walk around in the woods and I can but it that my my that that life had disappeared. So I threw myself into a situation like being back in the city, having to get back into baby work so that I could afford to live in the city, so I could live on my own, was kind of a catalyst for finding my life again, finding a new life, finding new reason. And I was able to start finding the gratitude only kind of after I made these really big changes.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

I totally get that too, because after my son passed, I had to move because I just couldn't see all the same things. The memories, it's just too much to be able to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

I think to get to gratitude sometimes, maybe it's intuitive, maybe it's instinctive, but it's like it's an action, right? Like yeah, we within us, we somehow knew we had to do this thing and we went with it and we did it. So I absolutely commend you when you had it, right? You took that showing real self-love. You had that opportunity and you took that opportunity, right? That's putting one foot in front of the other. What would you say, or how would you say people showed up for you, or you wish that people showed up for you when you were going through the relationship loss? What did that look like? How did you receive support or wish you did?

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yeah. The first time I broke with him, I ran away to Mexico with some friends who were on their way to Mexico. And we had a grand, you know, few days, you know, just kind of um not dealing with it again. I was in this hurrah, like go girl stuff. And then the next weekend I went to San Francisco and went to some weird bondage street fair with my like 75-year-old mentor, that's always been my life. And I got to have some really great conversations, especially with her, with someone that's older and has been through a lot of life and a lot of relationships and a lot of loss. And that was really wonderful. My friends showed up in that time of my hurrah. They weren't really there the second when I had gone back and the second time when I was feeling sad about it, you know, just kind of like I was expressing about how who do I talk to about my ex-husband when they're like, but he did all this crazy shit. How can you possibly be sad about this this guy not being here? I don't think those people have lost people. I don't know, because it's like it's a wild thing to say. So yeah, but my children showed up. And so something that amidst all my you know, garbage that I've done as a parent, because none of us are perfect, I do have a good feeling about what I have been able to give my children emotionally, physically, financially, whatever. And that we do have wonderful relationships. They like me. Show up for me when the weather's good or the weather's bad. So that was really interesting. My sister, who's my best friend, was like, I don't know why you're sad or what you're doing going back. You know, she was not an understanding. It was really my kids showed the second time.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

And then nobody wanted you also got to show your children that regardless of being their mother, you can be vulnerable and providing that to your kids. So at any point, right, they could give it back to you.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

That that's safety, that's a safe place. Your children.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

But it's hard.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

By the time I went on this road trip, I mean, I haven't told people I was going beforehand, but afterwards they were like, What are you doing? And haven't you learned your lesson? Da-da-da. And yeah, you know, you end up, unchantly, keeping some things to yourself that maybe you would have otherwise shared. I learned that during that experience and witnessed it with my daughter recently as I could see her relationship showing patterns that I didn't think were healthy. And I had to really pay attention to and be really intentional about the support that I gave her and what I said because I wanted her to continue to feel like she could be open with me. You know, if she chose to stay, if she chose to go back, if she talked to him again after she'd broken it up. We're so quick, I think, as friends that love our people to want to protect them. But I I think it can push people away sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

And then that's who you don't tell, right? When you said you're keeping secrets, because it's like I think it's twofold. I think if you don't want to tell your sister or your friend something, why not? And also for the sister or friend to still provide a a space that feels safe, even if you both know that you're maybe choosing the sideways thing, right? Like to still make you feel safe and not judged or or kind of stupid or foolish, right? Um, because that's an intense feeling, especially when we're so raw and vulnerable to to this thing that's hurting us. Um, how do you feel now? Do you feel completely, do you feel on the other side of it when you think of him or speak of it, does it hurt less? What is it what does it look like now for you? That is um a crazy question.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

It's like because um because I think of him often, and just I want to say two days ago, you know, because something reminds you in the environment, or you have a thought about you, whatever you guys know, like people pop into your mind. So he pops into my mind the other day, and I'm like, what are you doing? Why are you giving him this moment, this attention? Because there is there's the thought, and then there's am I going to continue thinking about this and going down? And I cut it off because but with the statement to myself, kind of like I was talking about about the opportunity and time to give myself love and attention and all this like I it's not that I don't have time, I'm choosing not to have time to give him, even if he's a thought in my mind. And I feel the same way about dating in general right now. Would it be nice to have a companion to go do things with or tell somebody about my day and they care? That would be really super cool. But I don't feel like that's where I'm at right now. I feel like my time and attention is on this curation of this person who I am coming alive to be. You know, this death of this per that was wasn't just the death of the relationship. It was a death of what I thought the rest of my life was going to be. I thought I was going to be married, have more children, and live on a mountain. It was a real belief.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Absolutely. And so you had uh that's real grief. That's your whole your whole life changed, right? In that. I don't know if we'll make you feel any better, but I had a relationship with a guy off and on for 18 years, and similar to things you explain with the fantasy and so forth. And together when I was 25 and then 28, all the way up until a year and a half ago, and similar, right? If I reach out, he's gonna respond because why wouldn't he? Um, but where I used to get upset or just hurt really bad, right? When I thought of him, I realized two things can be true, right? He can be fun, enjoyable. I feel like he gets me. We have this thing going. And also he does not have all these other qualities and vulnerability and truth and depth that I really require. They can both be true. And I can just kind of even I pray for him, you know. I'm kind of like, shit, you know, like it must it must be hard. But I can enjoy now kind of the memories of good times, knowing two things are true, right? I it doesn't mean I want him back, it doesn't mean I'm going back, but I had a memory, right? Because there was something about him, right? There was a connection somewhere, and that's real too. And that's real too.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Yeah, and that's you know, when I did this, like I'm blocking him. It was I had sent him, yeah, I had sent him a reel or two about like, you know, him working through his trauma and being better. He had replied with, Do you want to be my life coach? And I was like, No, you're the worst listener. And then I blocked him because I was like, What are you doing, Baba? What are you doing? Want him care, you want him to be better, but it's just like what you said. It's like these two things are true at the same time. And they're not for me to give attention to and to fix because it hasn't worked in the past. Absolutely. And everybody has to do their own work. So I'm good. I feel I feel I even started this fall after this like summer thing. I I'm a very colorful person usually. I got rid of all of my color in my wardrobe and I got black. Oh black. I didn't even know goth was gonna be a thing this fall. I would I was ahead of it. The kids were like, mom, what's going on? And I did. I wore all black until just recently. And I hadn't done that since I was a teenager, and I was really choosing to mourn. That's it's so funny how conversation makes you think of things and remember things. I was I started subconsciously, and then I started to understand what I was doing, and I was like, something died, something died in me. And I need to um, you know, let that be and let that be seen, if only for myself. Nobody else knew I chose to decide to wear black. Strangers don't know I'm wearing black because lots of people wear just black. But for me, it was very much a statement, like a that I'm in a mourning period. And but also at the same time, what fall is to me is also for you know, winter is just like this cocoon, this hibernation, this I am going to grow in a minute. I'm going to pop out of the ground in a minute, but right now I'm like, I'm here. And so was honor, is the word. So with my wearing all black, I was recognizing and honoring that I was mourning a life that I thought I was going to have.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

And that's self-love again, right? You intentionally mourned. You you saw it, you felt it, you allowed yourself to do it. And had you not, right? When we don't, we push it back and we repress it and it's deep in our body. And guess what? It's gonna be triggered and come out somewhere somehow. You allowed yourself to really intentionally mourn and process.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

Yeah. And actually, I made a lot of really short films during that period too. I had some time where between clients and they processed different things. I have one called The Maiden's Journey, and it's about being a young girl and then being a mother, and then what happens after that? You're the crone, right? But there's also something in between motherhood and crone. So yeah, I had my my art explored a lot of things during my mourning period that um yeah, I'm really glad I got the opportunity, and I'm also really glad I'm back to wearing like a clownish amount of cards.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Um, well, we'll be sure anything you're willing to share, please do because I need to hear the song.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Yeah, I was gonna say we should play it on our Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Absolutely. If you're open to that, I think that would be really special to connect it.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

It's very campy. I thought I was going to have someone, a friend who is an editor, he was like, Yeah, yeah, I'll I'll I didn't, I haven't really ever edited anything. And he sent me this piece of garbage that he made out. I mean, it was literally a nice I I love all artists so much for just doing it, you know. But I was like, wow, you did not care. You threw this together in five seconds, and this is my this is my baby right now. And so that's when I was like in bed with this neck injury, and I couldn't, I could move my my hands. And so I just edited it myself with some software that I was trying out. So it's very campy. They're like fake wolves and moons, but it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Amazing. Well, this ends our hour. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you. And to the listeners, we'll be posting more soon. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

And we'll be sharing links.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

Um, thank you so much. It's a pleasure.