I Can't See the Butterfly Right Now

It feels like I’m writing through this period of my life.

Apparently, this is what I’ve decided to do. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Some women travel.

Some women pick up new hobbies

—which, for the record, I have done too. 😄

Some women reinvent themselves,

change their hair, start working out,

redecorate the house, buy plants, whatever.

Me?

I write.

I write through it.

I don’t know what

all these words are going to look like

when I look back at them years from now.

I don’t know if I’ll be

embarrassed by how vulnerable I was,

proud of myself for surviving it,

or amazed by how much my life changed afterward.

Right now, I just know it feels right.

I heard Jill Scott describe this time in a woman’s life

like being a caterpillar

going through a metamorphosis.

Beautiful.

Poetic.

Very Jill Scott. 😂

I Can't See the Butterfly Right Now.

And I wasn’t

nearly as eloquent

in my description of this natural change of life.

I said this shit feels like

a second puberty. 🤨

Because listen…

Your body is changing.

Your hormones

are doing whatever the hell

they feel like doing.

Your emotions can have you

questioning yourself.

You’re tired for absolutely no reason.

And apparently naps

have once again

become an important part

of your daily routine.

Deeply unpleasant.

Confusing.

And unlike the first puberty,

this time you have bills. 😒

But underneath all of that,

there is something else happening to me too.

I am still grieving.

And grief is strange

because the world moving doesn’t stop

just because yours did.

People still go to work.

The grocery store is still open.

Your phone still rings.

People still laugh.

Dogs still need to go outside.

Bills still show up right on schedule.

And somehow

you’re expected to continue participating in life

while carrying something inside of you

that feels impossibly heavy.

Most nights,

I can barely sleep.

Some nights,

I don’t sleep at all.

I have lost my son

in a way I never imagined I could lose a child

who is still here.

And I lost my babies.

That pain is almost impossible for me to explain.

What makes it worse

is how common not having close loving families

seems to have become.

People hear

that somebody

hasn’t seen their children,

grandchildren, mother, father, sister, brother

—whoever—

and sometimes it feels like

we’ve gotten so used to broken families

that nobody even stops long enough

to understand what that

separation actually

does to the people involved.

But these are not relationships on paper.

These are people.

These are voices.

Faces.

Smells.

Inside jokes.

Morning routines.

Little hands.

Memories.

Love.

I can still see my grandson’s face.

I can still hear him

calling out to me.

It feels like torture.

There have been moments when

the pain has been so overwhelming

that I’ve thought a physical wound would have been kinder.

Because physical wounds make sense.

You can point

to where they hurt.

Somebody can bandage them.

Doctors know what to do with them.

But how do you bandage missing somebody?

How do you put stitches

in the place your grandchildren occupied

in your everyday life?

How do you explain

the pain of knowing the people you love

are somewhere

in this same world…

and you still

cannot reach them?

And for my own son

to be connected to something that has caused me

this kind of pain?

That one is going to take some time.

Probably a lot of writing too.

I don’t know what happens next.

I don’t know what gets repaired.

I don’t know who comes back.

I don’t know what

relationships survive this version of me

—or what version of me survives

these relationships.

So lately,

I have become one

who sits still

and waits.

And anybody who knows me

knows how unnatural that is for me.

I am a fixer.

A doer.

A talker.

A lemme see

what I can do about this 

kind of woman.

But some things cannot be fixed

because you want them fixed.

Some doors cannot be opened from your side.

Some people cannot be made to understand your love.

And some seasons

apparently require you to sit your ass down somewhere…

and wait.

So,

I write.

I grieve.

I pray.

I sleep when sleep decides to come.

I wake up.

And then I do it again.

Maybe this really is my metamorphosis.

Maybe years from now

I’ll look back at the woman writing these words

and realize she was

changing right in front of me.

I hope so.

All I’m Sayin’ Is…🫦

Right now,

I can't see the butterfly.

Right now,

I'm still in the cocoon.

Reina Dee🌿