I’m sitting on a cloth bench I bought over two months ago typing on my desk for the first time. It took me a long time to get here. Not to writing, considering I’ve been consistent about that for the first time since middle school. But to get here, where I’m alone in my yoga room with the baby monitor on while my son sleeps. Usually I read sitting next to him, in fear he’ll wake up and feel abandoned and be sad.

I haven’t heard of anything called “Postpartum Clinginess”, perhaps it’s a cousin to Postpartum Anxiety, but I haven’t felt able to be in my own space, even alone with my body, since my son was born.

Before my son was born I spent a lot of days in between work stuck in my own head. Perhaps, because I chose a difficult specialty straight out of nursing school and work was rather stressful. Mostly, I’m sure, because I’ve been living with a trauma disorder for years while only having learned about it a few months ago. It fills me with a deep sadness to realize I poured all of my years before having a child, aka the only time alone I’ll have for the next 17, completely burnt out and feeling paralyzed to invest in myself beyond creating income.

Making a hard statement like that is something I naturally want to retract. “It’s too negative”, “It’s not true, my son will be more and more independent as he ages”. But the truth is, there will not be another time in my life where part of my heart is not outside of my body. It’s okay that there is grief in something that is so incredibly precious to me.

Until this past month I have been someone who doesn’t believe in regrets, however I no longer spend time pressuring myself into seeing only the positive in my choices. The positive exists whether or not the negative is there, I’m incredibly optimistic, so I don’t need to gaslight myself eternally into believing everything is perfect. Some things are not. Those things that are not deserve a voice, too.

Today is one of those days I will make time to listen to “Hello” by Adele and connect with my younger self. I regret every moment after graduating high school that I spent in my Midwest town. I remember two weeks before beginning college, aka 12 grand worth of student loans that guided my choices from then on, and imagining myself taking the $800 I had saved from my first job at a sandwich shop and getting on a bus. I figured I’d return to my home state, Washington, and make a new life. I’d go to Olympic College the way I always dreamed of as a child, and maybe I’d be good enough to get into Washington State University. I romanticized Seattle like nothing else as a child. I’m not sure I’ll even believe I’m an entire adult until I go back and visit. It’s been 11 years.

A lot of what kept me from realizing my dreams as a teen and young adult was the fear of something bad happening, and not entirely believing I’d live to see my adult life. A lot of bad happened, anyway. I am at a crossroads in my life these days, where I am tipping the scales of investing in myself. I’m healing parts of me for good, like the part that didn’t think I’d be around now. I’m at a crossroads that doesn’t come with major change in terms of career or where I live. This is the crossroads of deciding whether or not I want to invest in the health of my body, and give myself a chance to feel like I belong here, alive and thriving. I could keep ignoring my body and neglecting my physical health, and I wouldn’t be unlike plenty of people. I could ensure I die younger than I need to of some kind of heart failure, simply by continuing down the path of not exercising and blinding myself from what I put in my body.

Or, I could dare to believe that the past being the past doesn’t mean my life is over. Being 25 with a career and a purchased home with bills doesn’t mean creativity, or opportunity, are over. Being clinically obese, and not having lost my baby weight even though my son is nine months old does not mean I’ll never be physically fit. When I was 19, I ran a half marathon in 2 hours flat. I can get there again.

I’m beginning this journey by making one commitment to myself to keep. Right now, it’s to drink a glass of water every day. I’ve found the more limits and specifics I require of myself when setting a goal, the less likely it is I will do anything to move towards it – so my first commitment is to drink one glass of water each calendar day. Even if its 11:59 pm.

I’m also taking the time, when a bad memory or negative belief about myself intrudes, to acknowledge that my spiritual beliefs don’t believe in a separation between the past and the present. When something hard comes up, I find the source, and I send myself love and instruction on what to do. I write this, and tell my 17-year-old self to get on the bus to Washington State with that $800. I tell her never to drink to the point of blacking out, and that college can wait. I tell my 15-year-old self to leave my ex in the past, and be alright feeling lonely for the rest of high school. I tell my 16-year-old self to let that troubled friend move on for good. I tell the 10-year-old that yes, getting hit by an adult is child abuse. I tell her it means there is something wrong with her caretakers, not her, and it is absolutely normal that she is questioning her religion and authority figures. I tell my 14-year-old self that having feelings for another teenage girl is completely normal, she doesn’t have to run away from a beautiful relationship, and she isn’t fundamentally messed up. Changes in these moments would’ve saved me a lot of hurt.

As I do this, I feel like I’m cutting strings around my heart, and setting it free. My heart spiritually fills up my room, and I feel so alive. I trust that where I physically am is the right place for me, but it doesn’t mean I can’t free a younger me of pain to come. Not every me has that burden to bear. Because I only live in the present, freeing myself that way brings me right here. Here is a wonderful place to be.

I dropped back into my own body writing this, so I feel much less “touched out and overwhelmed”. My baby monitor works, my son is now playing here in my yoga room while I finish up. My husband and I are communicating well, and we are in a good place as he texts me from work. I’m enjoying my new job and schedule. After this, I’m going to go for my glass of water, and maybe start reading a new book. I live in a big house I can afford, it’s the beginning of beautiful fall, and the opportunities of life are right here in front of me. It’s okay not to feel okay. Like any other thought and feeling, it’s only temporary.