High Mom

I feel like I’ve been a bit off lately. Not in a terrible way, but that energy was a bit stagnant. Like I wasn’t in flow.

Then this week, it came back and it felt like magic. I trusted myself, I fulfilled commitments I made to myself, I surprised myself and shined. I did it with a little help of my vape and some THC from the lovely San Juan Island here in Washington.

I used to be terrified of weed. Once after a bad brownie trip I was traumatized and turned off by it for a long time. This week I probably got high three times. And up until very recently I definitely judged people who smoked marijuana. I fell for the stereotypes and looked down on potheads, assuming they were people who were careless and unmotivated.

My association with marijuana undoubtedly comes from media, culture, family, but also specifically with the fact that my dad sold drugs, including weed, and was arrested which broke my heart. Instantaneously, as a young impressionable child, marijuana was cemented in my mind as something bad. Something destructive and wrong.

And so when I started smoking in college socially and in a self-medicating way (although I didn’t realize it back then), I was disappointed in myself. I had low self-esteem and I took my privilege and hard work of getting into Berkeley for granted.

But Berkeley was also a magical time because I met some of the best people I know, including my husband.

When we made weed brownies a few years after college and I experienced heartbreaking hallucinations, I swore off the substance banishing it as something that could only bring harm.

I didn’t understand then that it was just a substance, just a tool that highlighted, enlightened and enhanced whatever I was feeling at the time under the surface. And the resurfacing of those old wounds would be the impetus for my healing journey. I’m grateful for that bad trip, and the discoveries that would follow for years.

I still occasionally get triggered by smoking marijuana. I might see something scary or associate something innocuous with something dark.

But something has changed recently, and specifically after I gave birth to our children.

I have a courage that I didn’t have before. A trust in myself, my mind and body that was necessary and heightened after becoming a vessel for life into the world.

This week when I smoked after the kids went to sleep, I ate a madeline and Funyons in bed, laughed, journaled, listened to music. I connected with my husband and love of my life, I felt my feelings, I pushed myself in talk therapy. I went to an art show, my first ever, and felt moved by the experience of it.

I had a c-section with both of my children, and after a room full of strangers finagle around your vagina and slice your gut open and pull a human out it’s really hard to get embarrassed by anything. All jokes aside, this year from speaking on national television about my abortion to writing this and owning the fact that I like marijuana and am also a great parent feels freeing. It’s freeing because I’ve been able to take things I was deeply self-judging for, deeply ashamed of, and alchemize them into art and joy and fearlessness.

Upstairs as I write this, my children sleep peacefully. They are so loved and safe and I’m learning more from them than I could have dreamed up. I’m so grateful to be their mom and it’s a privilege I don’t take for granted.

And so tonight, after I get high and enjoy some Netflix with my love I will celebrate myself. I will not be shy about enjoying something that is safe. I won’t hide the fact that I’m discovering a new way to express myself and go inward. When I look at my children, I never want them to not own who they are and so even journaling about this on Medium is a practice for me — a practice of embodying and emulating what I believe in. It’s a way to walk the talk and find strength and show courage.

When I read the YouTube comments that said hurtful things about my interview on MSNBC, I felt a sting. It was a soft but very real voice that told me I was a bad person or that I should be ashamed, or quiet, or more private, or non-controversial. The sting felt like a disconnect and a tear. I told myself I didn’t need to be an advocate. But now, I realize that doing something and using my voice was a form of love. Not only for my children, but most importantly for myself. And that’s a gift I want to give them, too: a parent who loves themself and is unabashedly proud of themself.

It’s not easy. Not at all. But it’s getting a little easier the more I do it. Thanks for reading. Goodnight.