All the light you bring.

I am not waiting for this baby

like an eager teenager is not waiting

For her sweetheart to call.

That is to say that I am totally waiting

Twiddling my thumbs and saying

Any day now

Any day now

Any day now!

Which is true

and what can I do

but wait?

Here's something we did

My love & I took this bulging belly to receive a blessing at a Gira (or ritual) of the Templo Guaracy Da Terra. Here they practice the Afro-Brazilian Earth Religion of Umbanda, using song and dance to channel entities who bring blessings and light.

During the darkest of my days I would attend their rituals, understanding little, emoting a lot, and always walking away feeling slightly better.

This temple led me to Capoeira (my first love), which blessed me with my man (my other first love), who put this beautiful baby in my belly (my third first love), and now, however many years later it seems the darkest has passed for the most part. Light has come and it is so nice.

As the three of us approached to receive our blessing I was overcome with a weeping sort of joyful hysteria that takes me in moments of bliss. Greeted with hugs the entity told us that we have all that we need and that our light brought a blessing to the Gira. We were given a candle and a flower to put on our altar to represent that light and for it to fill the our home space and our lives.

I AM SO EXCITED TO RAISE THIS BABY AND LOVE THIS BUDDING FAMILY OF MINE!!!

A great big choice....

My mother attempted suicide multiple times. There is no exact count. She began showing off her scars to me when I was maybe 8 years old and continued to find herself in rehab programs long after I was on my own. It was such a repetitive cycle that it seemed less like a "cry for help" and more like a hobby.

Then I found the "Oh just give up" voice in myself. As life tends to do, it pushed me to the brink of myself. Sexual assault sent me into a serious decline and at that point in my life I found myself at a place where ending it seemed like the only solution to the despair. For the record, I never attempted. I did however turn the idea over in my hand like a shiny sharp object that vibrated with a power that scared the hello out of me. Instead I committed myself to as many healing activities as I could find...using everything that came my way as a lifeline to a place of light again.

It was at this time, in the muckiest, muck of myself that my mother made another of her attempts. I brought myself to the conversation begrudgingly. Putting myself in the motherly role I listened to her story once again and an anger bubbled up in me from so deep I thought I was going to vomit into the telephone.

Who the hell was she to try this again? What the hell does she have to be so tragic about? And why the flicking flack is she using me to get herself through this when I could not do the same with her? Irritated, but with a drive to be the good kid, I told her that death is not an option and that if I don't get to end it neither does she. She found inspiration in this, I slept for something like 3 days.

What I learned from this, is probably something many people already know. It is what really really sunk in for me:

Life is a choice. Since I have the cognitive awareness to understand that at some point I will no longer be bouncing along the universe on this firery ball called Earth, and since I understand that certain actions I take could make that end come sooner, then I have a choice. The choice to live or to die, the choice to thrive or to decline, the choice to grow into something more or to wither into something less.

And I realized that my choice was made a long time before my dark night of the soul descended upon me. For that I am grateful. For my mother I am also grateful, from her tragedy and despair came many a great gift, the most of exciting of which currently is my drive to be a balanced beautiful and loving momma.