Kate Didd

(Day 92)

I don’t really know what’s going on today.

I’m just… existing. Like an average girl in an average world, except nothing about this feels average. I’m tired. My eye still hurts from being damaged a couple days ago, and I haven’t been able to fully see right since. It’s been weird. Not good. Not terrible. Just… off. Like the world dimmed a little and nobody told me why.

But here’s the strange part it also hasn’t been bad.

I laid down, because my body basically forced me to, and people showed up. Not one or two. A bunch. Offering help. Doing things. Checking in. And I remember thinking, why are people helping me like this?

And then it hit me. Oh.

Because I’m a good person.

Because I’ve shown up. For them. For others. In quiet ways, loud ways, ways I didn’t even think counted. And the ripple effect of that? It came back. Not just directly but through people who showed up for people I showed up for.

Look at that.

Look at how beautiful that is.

But when my eyesight left me, even temporarily, I was scared in a way I haven’t been in a very, very long time. There’s something people don’t understand about losing something you rely on every second of your life until it’s gone. When the lights go out, even just a little, your whole world shifts.

And yeah this can be fixed. Surgery, probably. We’re lucky like that. We live in an era where things can be repaired, replaced, rebuilt. It’s very build-a-bitch over here just piecing myself back together from whatever life tries to take out of me.

And honestly? That’s kind of magical.

Money fixes problems until it doesn’t. And even money isn’t real, not really. It’s all just agreed-upon value floating in the air. But while I was stuck in bed for three days, forced to rest, something came to me that felt more real than anything:

It’s time to tell my story.

I’ve sat in it long enough.

And that thought? It’s terrifying.

Because the version of my story people know… it’s curated. It’s softened. It’s palatable. It’s something people can digest without choking on it. But the real story? The whole truth?

I don’t think people could handle it casually.

It’s a book kind of truth.

So I’ve been circling it. Talking to my therapist. Testing the waters. I even reached out to a ghostwriter who specializes in trauma, psychology, childhood wounds, the kind of person who knows how to hold something heavy without dropping it.

Because I know myself. I know what happens when I start digging in those places. I lose the thread. I get swallowed by it. And this isn’t a story that deserves to be lost halfway through telling it.

But it’s expensive. Time, money, energy, all of it.

So I had to ask myself:

Am I doing this to get my story out into the world?
Or am I doing this for me?

And maybe the answer is both.

He asked me something that made me laugh,
“Do you have receipts for all of this?”

I turned my head so fast on that Zoom call.

Of course I do.

Timestamped. Logged. Documented. Years of it. Facebook posts, memories, patterns, proof. And that’s when I realized something else.

For me, Facebook wasn’t about pretending.

It was about remembering.

It was how I checked myself. How I told the truth. How I could look back and say, no, that did happen. You’re not crazy.

And yeah, I know people lie online. I know they curate and filter and present a version of themselves that isn’t real. But not everyone does.

Some of us were just trying to survive out loud.

This morning was heavy. Hard to move. But I got to the gym anyway. Late but I got there. Finished the workout. Thank God.

And somewhere in the middle of that, I saw an email chain my mom had signed me up for years ago. I don’t even know how I’m still getting it. I thought it was a paid subscription. But there it was.

And I knew.

We’re talking today.

After my session with the ghostwriter, after sitting with those first two chapters starting to form, I was driving home when my cousin called.

She said, “I’m vibrating. I feel like it’s your mom.”

And I laughed. I was like, no fucking way.

But we leaned into it anyway.

She hung up for a minute, called me back and I was singing Christmas songs.

Christmas songs.

I hate Christmas music.

She was like, “What is wrong with you?”

And I just sat there like… wait.

My mom loved Christmas music.

Loved it.

And not just loved it she loved hearing me sing it. Standing in that choir loft, a hundred voices rising, singing something bigger than ourselves… those were her happiest moments.

And I got to live inside them with her.

So suddenly, it didn’t feel random.

It felt like joy.

Like she was coming through in the only way she knew I would recognize, through something that didn’t belong to me, but belonged to us.

Something in me shifted. Like I tapped into something deeper. Something ancestral. Something I don’t fully understand but I can feel it.

Is there science behind that? Maybe. Studies about peace, about nervous system regulation, about heightened awareness when you’re no longer in constant survival mode. Maybe when you finally feel safe, you can hear things you couldn’t before.

Or maybe it’s just love finding a way.

My cousin told me to pull tarot.

So I did.

And we read everything straight from the book. No interpretation. No coloring it with our own bias. Just the words as they were written.

And we laughed.

And we cried.

Because it was so clear.

Every card, every message, was the same:

Go.

Do the thing.

Move forward.

Stop hesitating.

Everything you’re standing on the edge of? Jump.

And right in the middle of it, my daughter walks in holding a baby bunny.

“I have a bunny.”

And I just…

There is no fucking way.

In the middle of a tarot reading, in the middle of feeling my mother’s presence, my child brings me a literal, living symbol of softness, gentleness, new life.

A familiar.

It was almost too much to believe.

But I let myself receive it.

All of it.

The laughter. The tears. The signs. The timing. The peace.

And when we hung up, I watched my daughter run off with her friend, bunny in hand, sunlight catching in her hair and everything just… settled.

All was right with the world.

For the first time in a way I can’t even explain, I felt it fully:

I am exactly where I am meant to be.

And it doesn’t feel loud.

It doesn’t feel chaotic.

It feels soft.

It feels safe.

It feels like something I never imagined I’d get to have and somehow, it’s better than anything I ever wished for.

The morning I talked to my mama…

Everything changed.

Or maybe…

Everything finally made sense.