2023

I’m seeing my life in seasons. Currently, winter.

A winter ago, yes. Let’s start there.

Prefaced to say, I feel a thousand years removed from 2023.

winter

I called my friend Jamie about hosting a prenatal at her pink townhouse in Macon. My best friend from high school, Erin, was pregnant and due in weeks-ish. I was her midwife, 4 hours away, and Macon was middle ground.

I was antsy, terrified actually, of this birth. The what-ifs were intense and at the possible expense of my best-friendship. Most nights I lied awake making bargains with God. Out of habit, not belief. Then swearing to Jamie the morning after.

I will never attend another birth. I cannot deal. Take me to Greece with you. Etc.

Birth and death are synonyms to me. A terrifying two sides of the same coin and I knew I could never be the midwife I wanted to be unless I could hold this truth. True midwifery calls to me and with it the templates to feel the terror.

As Jung says, “no tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

How silly, I would have found this at 21. 25 even. A good midwife can avoid death, just like a good human can avoid death. But at 29, I was getting it. Loud and clear.

I sat on the floor in my parent’s basement listening to girl I met on instagram talk about darkness and light. “The closer to the light, the darker the shadow, don’t ya know.” Um. I don’t know. I’ve spent my entire life resisting anything dark because I associate it with evil. It’s glory to glory. Higher and higher. Lighter and brighter. Don’t @ me with your suffering darkness shit.

I journaled aka posted on IG - “I’ve never had more questions and never had more peace. I’ve never been more scared and never been more free. I’ve never been so close to atheism and so close to God. I’ve never been so lost and never been so found.”

(You should have seen my DMs. Apparently, I’m not the only one.)

February and March proved this paradox. Dancing with spectacular miracles while my heart shattered into a fantasy of living anyone else’s life but my own. Another CF saga you’re currently spared from reading. Life is both/and.

Erin free-birthed her baby, Mary Alice, and I witnessed. All was well. I was free and never had to attend a birth again. Or so I thought.

I was mentoring women as a side hustle. Coffee ain’t cheap. Loved the women. Hated the gig. Maybe I was cut out for midwifery after all.

I was getting calls from birthing women weekly, denying the opportunity to serve them. How do you say, “sure, I’d love to hold you in birth. But, I’d hate to hold you in death.”

spring

My sister had a baby girl - Montgomery James. This was sure to be the greatest day of my year. (And it was!)

Decided to grow, leaves and roots. Believing growth is not linear. It’s messy. It’s both/and. It’s a spiral-ly and cyclical, baby. Sign me up.

Oh! Look! There I go telling people I’m open for business. Hello, Liddy Midwifery!

I hired two mentors to hold me in this season of expansion. Both named Hannah.

The highs of “yes!!! I’ll be your midwife!” married the lows of “uterine rupture, placental abruption, congenital abnormalities, embolism, incompatibility with life…”

Nothing a Taylor Swift concert can’t cure.

That, and the cosmic event of turning 30. :) Thanks mom and sisters for the epic surprise party dedicated to Lizzie McGuire and Shia Lebouf.

summer

Our 70s house on Cornelia had a pink bathroom and I loved it.

The sink flooded the kitchen 4 times. Just a wink from the universe to help solidify my unraveling beliefs about mold.

The days were bright and long. Days I want in my body forever.

Slow cacoa mornings. Nature walks. Princess of Cornelia rescuing luna moths. Cosmo the cat. Beautiful chorus. Peter in Blueberry Land. Earth altars. Dancing to Redneck, Red Letters, Red Dirt. Naming the yard. Pure Taqueria. Swinging. Climbing. Creek dipping. Gymnastics. Catch air. Staining the carpet. Monty growing older and older. Hometown travels. Midwifery gatherings. Blossoming friendships.

Etc.

autumn

A dear client gave me the book Parallel Universes of Self. Cried lots and read it 3x in a month.

I held a sacred women’s gathering and sat on the floor while my sister Marissa stood/spoke over me as an embodiment of my inner critic - now known as Righteous Rachel.

You are Olivia Pitts —
You are not worthy of love.
You don’t mean anything you say.
Your being is evil and nothing can change that.
When you feel close to God, you’re wrong. You’ve never been further from God.
You are a deceived daughter of the devil.
Submit to the ways of your mother and father, they know you best.
A renewed mind cannot heal cancer, much less cystic fibrosis. 
The damage is done - you’re too late.
You are destined to choose wrong.
You will burn in hell for eternity.

I rose. I looked her in the eyes and replied.

I am Olivia Pitts —
I am as free as I want to be.
Infinite possibilities surround me.
My desires manifest in the physical. Over and over. 
I am a spiritual being, enjoying a human experience.
I am right on time in a perfect place, always.
I throw parties for miracles.
My heart is pure.
I am covered by love for eternity.
I am one with God, yesterday, today, tomorrow, every day of this life, and the next.

My baby turned 3 and started forest school!!!!!

3 autumn births came in the same week, within 4 days.

Johnny Love was way off CF baseline during the births - headed to the ER, and I didn’t freak out.

Wtf. Maybe that course I took on Inner Mastery over the summer actually worked. I was regulated and okay in the middle of a CF nightmare and a shoulder dystocia. A new normal unlocked. What’s next?

Disney World with my mickey-obsessed family, like some whipped cream on a sundae.

And 3 more autumn/pre-solstice/christmas births, the cherries on top.

winter

I was cold plunging more than I wasn’t. Posting about it more than I wasn’t.

I settled in and out of the exchange between myself and 2023.

It felt like breadcrumbs what I’d been giving to the world.

Life felt so last year.

The caterpillar needs a chrysalis.

Why not a pilgrimage to Maui?

XO liddy