The Day I Almost Didn’t Book for Myself

I want to tell you about something small. At least small to me. Small on purpose. The big moments are almost never where the truth is hiding.

It was an ordinary afternoon + I was in the middle of taking care of something that wasn’t mine. Not a crisis + certainly not anything anybody would even begin to notice. Something so simple + I caught myself mid-motion, realizing I could not remember the last time somebody had done something like that for me.

Not paid. Not scheduled. Not because I asked twice or even begged.

I have never experienced anything just being done for me. Ever.

In the midst of this realization, you know what I did? I kept going lol because that’s what I do. That’s what we all do.

Here’s the thing. This has been going on long before I ever actually noticed. Years, if I’m honest + it felt completely normal. It felt like an me issue. Like some sort of personality trait instead of a pattern.

There is a whole list of vocabulary to describe it too. She’s strong. She got it. She always has it. Chile, at one point I was wearing those descriptions like a warm coat + badge of honor. Hell, I still catch myself reaching for them.

Strong + depleted are not opposites. You can be both at the same time for a very long time + nobody will come check on you, simply because you have been the one that holds it all together so you always appear like you’re fine.

I’ve spent about a decade now in rooms with women in the biggest transition of their lives. Birth rooms. Postpartum rooms. Women learning their own cycles for the first time at thirty-four. Women getting blindsided by perimenopause at forty-three because not one person warned them. I hold those rooms. I open them + I close them + I carry what happens inside them.

I have never once been a guest in one of those rooms.

Truth Moment? That is the part I did not want to write down.

I have built my whole life around making sure women get held + I have almost NO experience being the one who gets held. I know how to give it. I do not really know how to receive it. Those are two entirely different skills + nobody ever told me I’d have to learn the second one on purpose.

So I built the day.

One Sunday. A Black-owned farm about three hours out from me. Ten women, because ten is small enough that everybody actually gets seen + feels connected. Breakfast, a sister circle opening with real talk about our bodies + the seasons we move through. Hands in herbs, herbal rituals blending a personalized sitz soak that you get to take home. A table where the food is hot + nobody needs anything from you mid-bite. Then we close, similar to how we started in a sister circle + you drive home a little lighter than you came.

I built the exact day I have needed for about six years.

And then I almost did not tell anybody about it. Not properly anyways.

I want to be specific about why, mainly because I think some of you will recognize yourself in this.

It is not that I’m shy. It is not that I don’t believe in the work, I actually believe in this more than almost anything else I’ve ever built or done. Its the whole standing up + saying I made this, I want you here, come sit down with me that creates the biggest knot in my throat in a way that inviting folks to rest has never done.

I can talk about your rest all day long. Sleep debt + the impacts it has on your overall quality of life. I have built a whole business on resting. But asking for something that is mine, something that I literally birthed? That is the hardest work I do. Harder than a fourteen hour birth. Harder than the broken sleep of being on call. Harder than any of it.

Because asking means somebody might say no + when you have spent your whole life being the one who shows up, a no lands somewhere real tender.

I sat with that for a minute + made the decision I was not gonna model something for you that I refuse to do myself. I cannot spend years telling women to stop abandoning themselves + then quietly abandon myself in the marketing.

So here I am. Telling you properly.

Here is what I actually want though, + it’s bigger than one Sunday.

I want you to notice the mid-motion moment. The one where you catch yourself doing for somebody + you realize you can’t remember the last time somebody did for you. I want you to not immediately explain it away. Don’t call it strength. Don’t say it’s just this season. Just let it be true for a second.

You do not have to earn rest. That is the whole lie +that is the thing I am still unlearning at forty-one in front of all of you.

I absolutely love that you are here + I absolutely LOVE that I am back writing. Goodness this feels great.

Till next time my friends

XO

Denawa Deniece