I’ve been reflecting on this year for the past few days. Writing out what happened to me when I visited Brigid’s Well caused an avalanche of molasses-slow emotions, tumbling upwards from my soul through my heart, and finally, now, out through my fingertips.

It’s been one of the hardest years in my life. But I feel like it’s also been one of the best. I feel like a traitor for saying that – it feels like I’m betraying myself, making light of the hard. If I wouldn’t be where I am now without the hard I’ve been through this year (and I wouldn’t), then is there wrong in saying that the hard made me stronger? That it brought me, eventually, goodness?

But it feels wrong to say I wouldn’t have it any other way. How can that be? Wouldn’t I be happier having not lost my uterus?

I find that I can’t say.

What once felt like a no-brainer duh absolutely yes… now feels unclear.

I don’t even know if I would choose differently, knowing now what I know. Being where I am feels right. It feels more right than I felt before. Focusing on writing feels more aligned with my spirit than focusing on surrogacy did.

It feels like co- versus inter- dependency.

Looking at it outside, surrogacy feels co-dependent. I was relying on others to bring me happiness. I wouldn’t have been happy, I wouldn’t have felt fulfilled, until I was pregnant for someone else, until I was helping someone else, until I was living my life entirely for someone else (be it the baby or the baby’s family).

And writing? Writing feels interdependent. Spirit moves to me write – and I write for me. I write because if I don’t, I ache. I write because it is what I need, it’s what I’m moved to do. It helps me. It brings me joy. It brings me satisfaction and fulfillment. I do it because it is aligned with my heart, my spirit, myself – and Great Spirit.

I feel lucky that my writing helps others. It brings me closer to others. It helps me create and sustain community.

But I would write, now, even if it didn’t do any of that. I write because it is what I do. It’s what I am – a writer. It’s what I always was, deep down inside, beneath the fear and the critics, below the tangled web of pleasing others first and co-dependency. I write. I am a writer. I am made of words.

The turning of the seasons turned me. I went from external to internal, from open to closed to open again.

I experienced a spiritual awakening, a spiritual divorce, a spiritual crisis, and a spiritual renewal.

I have moved through fear and into the light. I have traveled there and back again. I disconnected from myself, my body, and my heart and turned my back on myself, only to find that the disconnection brought me only sorrow. And I found the path forward, into reconnection.

I found myself in the dark, darker than ever I have seen in my life. I was full of fear and hate and hurt, sorrow and loss and fear, and I had no idea where to go from there. I had no map, no clear path. No one could help me; in fact, I shunned all attempts.

But when I was ready, I opened myself again. I allowed Spirit in, I invited Spirit back, and Spirit filled me like never before. Where I was empty, Spirit filled me. Where I was dark, Spirit gave me light. Where I was lost, Spirit helped me make the map home.

I learned that there is no going back. There is only now, there is only this moment, and we can only choose to start here. There is only here. There is only me, here, and you, here, and Spirit, here. Spirit and love.

This has been the hardest year of my life. It has been the worst year of my life.

And here, at the end, I see that it has been the best year of my life.