life is forever building upon itself.

sometime within the last four years or so, i was taking a shower while my wife sat in the bathroom with me, and we were talking, nothing but the shower curtain between us.

we do this a lot. i value my alone time, but when taking a shower, there’s something really special about this time together. you know how some of the best off-the-beaten-path thoughts come to you when you’re sitting under the water? some of my favorite thought paths started as shower thoughts, and sharing these with my wife is one of my favorite things to do.

sometimes i “forget” to gather my towel and hair things so i can call for her and she’ll sit with me. i know i don’t need the excuse, and i know she knows what i am doing. she never minds, nonetheless.

anyway, it was soon after she’d gotten settled into her transition. the first year of a gender transition is really hard, as anyone who’s gone through it (or is close to someone who’s transitioning) knows. there’s a lot of trial and error, a lot of finding yourself. stratospheric highs, and lows deeper than hell itself. it’s not easy, but always worth it.

i clearly remember a time while washing my hair and telling her i wanted to be a transition doula. help people through the tribulations we’d just gotten through ourselves. she thought it was a fantastic idea, but told me it was definitely not the first time i’d had an idea just like it.

i’m trained as a birth and postpartum doula, bereavement, and have been eyeing death midwifery apprenticeship for years. (i’m probably still going to do that, tbh.) and, in the shower that day, i connected all these dots and realized i could use the same skills to support people through transition.

i spent awhile thinking about what that might look like. what would be the protocol? would i have a program i’d guide people through over the course of the year? and then another realization came through, about myself.

pregnancy, birth, the postpartum period, bereavement, gender transition, and death are the most liminal periods of our lives, and i’m tenaciously drawn to them like a moth to a streetlight. i can’t get enough of it. i love the spaces in between. the times where we stand and crumble with pieces of ourselves on all sides of life and death.

is it really a surprise that i ended up becoming a life coach? that directly before that, i was professionally reaching through the veil reading tarot, tea leaves, and black mirrors?

as i look back on my life experiences i am overcome with awe as i realize how everything i’ve done, every hardship i faced, literally and directly prepared me for the next breakthrough i’d have. it’s spooky, but also, divine.

last year in therapy, i recalled to my doctor how every book i had read lately seemed to have a direct callback to the book i read before, or even two books before. regardless of genre, topic, fiction or non, at some point some distinct detail would tie it back to what i’d already recently read.

an albatross. a candlestick. the way a character expressed her love in the same way i was instructed to travel between the planes in trance. things that i wouldn’t have ever put together had i not read these exact books, in the order i’d read them. (which was never pre planned. i can never tie myself down in that way, i only move in the direction in which my spirit and my propensities pull me.)

but i also love just throwing myself into the river of my life and allowing the unseen currents under the surface pull me to where i’m supposed to be. there was a time when i’d bring a tent and pole with me, over-pack a suitcase and a cooler and set up on the shore instead, dipping my toes in the waters and then pulling away when i’d had enough. return to the familiar that i had spent so much time painstakingly making just the way i wanted it. i camped out! i earned this!

but then, sitting in my lounging chair in the sun, i’d watch everyone else float on. without me. and then the pangs of jealousy would rise, and i’d remember that’s what i’m meant to be doing too.

and instead of grabbing an inner tube or just hopping in and floating with them, too… i’d just wait for the tide to rise, or the hurricanes to come in and flood the river. wrecking my camp, and instead of going voluntarily when the waters were calm, me and everything i built would be ripped up and dragged down in torrential waters.

sometimes, i thought i’d drown. sometimes, i came really really close. at the last minute, i’d see something i could grab on to, or the hands of loved ones or strangers would grab me and pull me to the surface again.

not to say that these metaphorical river waters are easy and lazy and great for floating all the time. rapids happen, and rocks are there, and they’ve rocked my shit from time to time as well. and damn if they aren’t easier to see coming from the shore, or from the bridge that many take to avoid getting in the river to begin with.

my place, where i am meant to be, is floating on the surface. bobbing up and down with the waves. looking up to see the sky, and able to dive into the depths. always able to take control and swim when necessary. i am not helpless. i am not untethered. i am not out of sight.

when i’m here, it’s hard to find the distinct line between air and water, because there isn’t really one. always undulating. fluid. changing. even when you’re sure of what you see, there is more to perceive than what you can with your eyes. how can you be so sure when the fog is hanging low over the water?

when i was in training, my teacher walked us through what she called a “hypno-psychedelic trance” one day, which could help us revivify a psychelic experience we’d had before. it was incredible, and afterwards, i found myself in that metaphor of water. specifically, those places where river meets ocean meets the sky. blue, blue, blue, with unclear boundaries between the salt/fresh water and the open sky above it, and miles and miles under the surface to be discovered.

that’s how i see the intersection of mind, body, and spirit now. and also the intersection between reality, unreality, and the divine.

it is this understanding that allows me to continue to venture inward and find more pieces of myself, and help others do the same.