Dear Body,
I spent time with you today. Real, intentional time. I usually spend so often residing upstairs in Mind I couldn’t tell you the last time I came down to visit. We cried today, Body. We laughed, too. Funny, isn’t it, how similar the sounds of laughing and crying are? The clenched stomach. The gasping breath. The eyes pinched shut. The relief that follows. I immersed you in cold water today, Body. Let you sink down far enough for the water to come up over our ears. You told me that these are the sounds you remember from the womb. The muffled outside world. The intensified sounds of inside of our own being. So attune to the sound of our breath and heartbeat- increased to crystal
Clear frequencies. The weightlessness. The splashing. Since the water was so cold, though, Body, the upstairs brighter, Mind, thought we were dying! She was screaming up a storm- increased our heart rate and set off the fire alarms of flight response and everything! But you stayed put, Body. You didn’t give in to her fearful false alarms. You breathed. You calmed. And we smiled. You shook, too, Body. Ferociously. But in that shaking, I could feel you shedding internal layers. Energy and trauma and memories that have been clung to your bones for years. Decades, even. Untouched and gotten a little too comfortable hiding down there sucking the life out of you. So we shook. And we breathed. And we laughed. And we cried.
When we emerged from the water, Body, I observed you in the mirror. Gently and unjudgingly just noticing you. I apologized to the parts of you that have been hurt and abused- taken from you and taken advantage of. I thanked the parts that produce, provide and propel. I noticed how when your skin is wet from the water, you sparkle, Body. Glimmer in those beads of liquid as if infused with magic. I looked into your green eyes, Body, and I said without saying: “I’m sorry. And I love you.” Your chin quivered and your brow furrowed as liquid filled those places, too. Your eyes always did get even more lusciously green when you cried. Beautiful. Soft. A hardened sweetness. I like you, Body. And I’m going to visit more often. Now, get some rest. I’m proud of you.
Love, Emma

Dear Rage,
I feel your scorn. Your angst. Your thirst for vengeance on those who harmed you, stole your youth, your innocence. A ravishing hunger to avenge injustice. All the times you grew up feeling like the other, less-than, lacking and without. The craving of normalcy and the lofty dreams of ‘if only’s’ still taunting you. Rage, you used to be meek. You used to be Fear. But you got tired of being quiet. So you seeped through my veins like searing molten reprisal. You got loud. “I deserve this anger and all who cross me will pay,” you whispered. You made me feel powerful. But, deep down, Rage, you were still just Fear. Fear and jealousy.
So, Jealousy, it’s your turn to take the stand for your crimes committed against young Emma.
Dear Jealousy, you greedy and inexhaustible glutton. Your craving and lust for what others had made Emma believe she was less-than. Unworthy. She played the victim because of you. She WAS the victim already, plenty of times, Jealousy! Ask Rage! She’ll tell you. But you perpetuated that state of longing and lack and lingering pessimism in young Emma. You kept her weak and insecure. Unfulfilled in her own skin and blood. Comparison is the thief of joy, Jealousy. And you her Robin Hood. Jealousy, you are at Emma’s core from the beginning of her consciousness, watching her parents flail around in financial disarray craving the stability your friends had at home. But you really took flight when you teamed up with Rage during Emma’s teen pregnancy. Didn’t you.

So, the largest part of Emma’s teenage years, I address you:
Dear Pregnancy,
You are the defining role of Emma’s teenage-dom. The star. The main character. Her teenaged legacy. I would argue to say, most teenager girls’ dreams aren’t to be secretly 5 months pregnant on their 16th birthday- but who’s to say! Pregnancy went hand in hand beautifully with Rage and Jealousy. A sour and lingering flavor of an insecurity sandwich that Emma feasted on for years to come. Pregnancy took over her identity and all she was seen as while waddling through her very lowly populated, all-girls Catholic school halls. Pregnancy was met with some flittery and naive school girl pets and “awww’s” and naivety. Equally was Pregnancy met with blank stares while the tight-lipped and bated-breathed onlooker was clearly calculating my age in their head while staring at the size of my clearly unwed belly.
Pregnancy was scary. And lonely. Isolation, longing, pain, disassociation, and fear all became close friends.
But, Teenage Emma, the absolute only way to the other side, is getting through the madness. I wish I could go back and get you into therapy sooner. I wish I could remove the hole that was left inside of you that you began to fill with substances and stupid boys. Your pain was real and great. Too great for your underdeveloped brain, heart, and body. But You are brave. People mean it when they tell you that. Let them. You are not alone. And you are so deeply loved.
See you on the other side, kid. You make it, I promise.
And your baby is beautiful.