Aundrea Sayrie: Introducing Good Grief. Creating space for awareness, honesty, and repurposing pain
Watershed Voice columnist Aundrea Sayrie is introducing a new series exploring how loss lives in everyday lives, and its impact on mental health. This month she will examine the “mother wound,” and how a month she once looked forward to feels different, forcing her to “confront the distance” between who she is and who she wants to be.
Good Grief. is a dedicated space to explore how loss lives in our everyday lives and its impact on mental health. Written through the lens of lived experience, it examines the quiet ways grief shows up. In our bodies, our relationships, and the patterns we carry. Creating space for awareness, honesty, and repurposing pain.
Kicking off the series will be articles on the mother wound. And here is the first one:
Hello May.
A month I used to welcome like an old friend.
The entire month once felt like a Hallmark holiday.
A time of celebration.
Mother’s Day. Mom’s birthday.
Now… its approach feels different.
Ominous. Vulnerable. Weighted.
There’s nowhere to hide from the feelings I’m still working through
Feelings that have only compounded over time.
Now eclipsed by grief.
Ache. Longing.
A loneliness I can’t fully explain.
May has a way of forcing me to confront the distance
between who I am
and who I want to be.
To face the devastating truth
that I have worked so hard to build beautiful things,
and still found myself burnt out,
with little to show for it.
I just want to live.
So now…
I am someone learning how to decenter survival.
Because for a long time, survival was all I knew.
People-pleasing.
Hyper-independence.
A tolerance for mistreatment that ran far too high.
Hyper-aware.
Anxious.
Always bracing.
Not personality
pattern.
Because survival comes with politics.
Not the kind you debate,
the kind you live by.
The kind that teaches you how to move carefully.
How to read a room before you speak.
How to shrink and not be a burden.
You know the ones.
Respectability politics.
Gender politics.
Family politics.
Religious politics.
A performance.
Rules unspoken, adhered to, and understood.
The kind that rewards you for being agreeable.
For being strong.
For not asking for too much.
And somewhere along the way,
those rules stop feeling like survival
and start feeling like who you are.
I carried them all
like badges of honor.
Back-breaking.
Knee-buckling.
Heart-aching.
Forward.
Onward.
Silent.
I nearly died.
No exaggeration.
It was mothering,
And motherhood, that kept me here.
And as I start pulling at the threads,
I’m realizing…
this motherhood journey isn’t uniquely mine.
It didn’t start with me.
And I can’t help but wonder just how far back it really goes…
Aundrea Sayrie is a writer, narrator, advocate, and the creator of Good Grief., a reflective platform exploring grief, belonging, identity, healing, and intentional living through storytelling and spoken reflection. Drawing from lived experience, community advocacy, and creative expression, her work centers emotional honesty, connection, and giving language to the experiences many people struggle to name. She truly believes the only thing worse than hurting is hurting alone and hopes to be a companion to others through their healing journey.
If you would like to support her work as an independent writer and creative, donations can be sent via Cash App: $Asayrie
Any views or opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Watershed Voice staff or its board of directors.
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