I've been running on the beach with my dog every day.
It's nice to feel a rhythm emerging from what was, for most of the summer, a hazy cloud of grief. Things are beginning to come back into form.
It can be disorienting, getting back in touch with life on the other side of death.
It's easy to get stuck in the processing—the continuous mulling over, analyzing, and self-reflection that come with the conclusion of an impactful chapter. But I caution anybody against that.
At a certain point, when all the emotional communication is complete, it's proper and necessary to start turning your attention toward the continuation and celebration of all the life that remains and is yet to come.
You guys, this has been a really tough season.
But it has also been tremendously beneficial.
Having now cleaned up the unfinished business with my mother and my father, I feel lighter than I ever have before. So much clearer, and with way more resources underneath me.
It's incredible.
The journey is the reward, and sometimes the side quest bears exactly the fruit you need in service of the greater mission.
Don't be afraid of the side quest.
So here I am in Humboldt County.
It's been a beautiful fall reconnecting with close friends, feeling community, and remembering that I actually have one here.
As I made my way from cannabis into general agriculture, I moved farther and farther away from my roots in the Emerald Triangle. Returning has given me the chance to revisit some of the more formative years of my healing journey, which actually started right here.
I arrived in California heartbroken and broke after pouring everything I had into a relationship that just didn't pan out.
I found myself 3,000 miles from anybody I knew, really having to figure it out.
It was coming to Northern California and working on a cannabis farm that gave me my first real dose of healing on and with the land.
I Humpty-Dumptied myself back together for the first time.
Notice I said the first time.
We would hit that hard reset again. But the original pattern for my do-it-yourself healing program started here.
And so to be back here now, as the woman I am today, is wild.
I'm so grateful for that younger me and all the shit she went through.
This was right on the heels of Charlotte and me going no contact. It was a really vulnerable, painful, and deeply dysfunctional time.
To look back on those years with such compassion, love, and appreciation, with these eyes, from this distance...
Oh man.
I hope everybody gets to experience that in their own story.
We were all doing the best we could with the tools we had at the time. And there's something really beautiful about being able to appreciate the choices, the struggles, and the successes that carried us here, even when the path was messy.
Now, as I bring my attention back to the present and consider what comes next, I'm taking inventory of what is and isn't coming with me.
What did I believe then? Where did those beliefs come from? Do I still believe those things now?
It's been a real season of soft reflection, and that's been great.
But awareness is nothing without action.
So here I am, considering purchasing land in Humboldt and establishing roots in a place I once swore I would never return to.
It's difficult to overstate how important that feels.
I used to have panic attacks just being in this area. Now it could become home.
And even if it doesn't, the fact that it could is a victory.
I've been reclaiming all of the ground I once conceded to pain and trauma.
Going back to North Carolina, facing Charlotte, being fully present with her and in service to her, I reclaimed a lot of emotional ground.
Physical ground, too.
Being able to go back home without feeling afraid of who I might run into if I turned a corner.
And now, out here reclaiming this part of Northern California that had been on my personal do not enter list.
I'm giving myself compassion for not knowing before the things only time, experience, and wisdom could impart.
And permission to stop being continuously fucked up by things that have already happened.
I'm really proud of the way this has all shaken out.
There's something especially meaningful about finding myself here, feeling this whole and this capable, as we approach the seventh anniversary of my real mama MomBec's passing.
She died of cancer on October 30, 2019.
Before she died, I made her a promise.
You see, she intervened in my life at a time when it was touch and go as to whether or not I was going to become a tragic tale.
Her love saved my life, in no uncertain terms.
And so when she passed, I promised that I was going to do something great with the life she helped me keep.
What very few people know is that I've spent every single day of the last seven years with that promise in my mind, working to orient my life more and more around it.
And I've loved the results.
Because what I realized is that in order to do something great, I had to become the kind of person capable of doing it.
That promise became my North Star, the guiding principle behind my decisions ever since.
I went all in on healing some of the deepest wounds and dysfunctional patterns that were impeding my ability to reach my fullest potential.
It was a full-on "Clean up on aisle 7" situation for a hot minute, y'all.
And I don't know that I would have had the fortitude or determination to see so much of it through without that commitment to her.
As I approach the seventh anniversary of her passing, after everything this year has brought, I'm realizing that I've been doing the thing I promised her I would do.
I'm doing it.
I've been doing it.
And somewhere along the way, I've become the person I needed to be to do even more.
There's still so much I want to accomplish. But I no longer feel like I'm waiting to become the person who can accomplish it.
I am that person.
And to recognize that now, having just come through the passing of my natural mother, feels especially meaningful.
That relationship taught me so much. Working through things with Charlotte all the way to the end brought me a peace I wouldn't have had otherwise.
And in doing so, it cleared the way for me to continue moving forward with the mission MomBec's death inspired.
It's wild how these things come together.
The journey is the reward. The side quests bear fruit. And sometimes the very experiences that seem to take us away from our mission turn out to be exactly what we needed in order to fulfill it.
Everything we've been given, including grief, loss, and the experience of death, can become material for our continued evolution.
The more aligned you are with your mission, the easier it becomes to see that.
I'm not saying it makes the pain disappear.
But it gives the pain somewhere to go. It gives it purpose.
Welp, I've brought peace to major unresolved areas that had been breaking my heart for years: my estranged relationships with both parents, the sexual trauma I experienced as a child, and the ways I disappointed myself while trying to survive the patterns that came from all of it.
And in doing so, I've unlocked what I need to keep doing my thing, working on the changes I want to see in the world.
I think about the girl who arrived here all those years ago, heartbroken, broke, and trying to put herself back together.
I think about the woman who returned to North Carolina and faced what she had spent years avoiding.
I think about the promise I made seven years ago, and everything that has happened since.
Now it's time to turn what I've got into everything I need.
And I'm so good at that.
-Sunny
Fresh cut💅
