If you don't know me, I'm wildkinship & this is the story of how writing and creating affirmation art helped me find myself.
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about "why" I started this whole journey.
To be honest, I started wildkinship because I was in a pretty dark place. I was going through post-partum anxiety and I think.. depression. I can't say for sure as I was never diagnosed, but I look back now and can see how much I struggled.
The nights of that first year were terrifying for me, I probably wouldn't have told you if you'd asked, but they were awful.
I was experiencing the greatest love of all, but the lack of sleep combined with my busy brain and losing my sense of who I was - I crumbled under the weight of it all and found myself up in the early hours of the morning - trying to process the pain.
I wasn't a drinker and we were broke so I couldn't shop the pain away.. so instead... I began to write.
I never set out to create art, but yet the words helped me through a really difficult chapter.
Time, in the end, was part of it the healing, but honestly? So was surrendering a belief I'd been holding onto really tightly. I'd always thought that being a good mum meant being a stay-at-home mum.
I'd been building things since I was nineteen, my first ecommerce store, my first bricks and mortar at twenty. I was someone who made things happen and then I became a mum I put all of that aside so I wouldn't "miss" a moment. I found myself in a completely new situation, with the same brain and desire, but so so lost.
Our eldest was amazing, I coped during the day with a smile on my face but the nights were a different story. I was a shell of myself.
I had no idea who I was anymore and just wanted some space from the velcro child. As much as I adored them, I wasn't giving them my best. I needed to pursue something for me again.
After a year of barely sleeping, barely breathing, trying to run a business from the edges of their nap times - I finally surrendered. We ended up enrolling them in daycare one day a week and I went back to work & at that time, that was the BEST decision I could have made.
I remember feeling like I was failing, right up until the moment I walked in the door.
It was amazing.
That very first day, while the drop off was so difficult (for me, not our child) - I got the tiniest glimmer of me again. I also found a sleep consultant who was gentle and kind. Back then there were so few options for sleep support, only Ferber and Save Our Sleep style programs - I struggled with those.
Slowly, we all began sleeping again.
Over the following year, I began to heal.
Going back to work gave me just enough of myself back to function and through it all, writing helped me figure out what I needed and what mattered to me.
Just thinking about that time I feel quite emotional, I was 26 - so very young and so in over my head.
The truth is, words have always been important to me.
The first song I ever learned the lyrics to was a Missy Higgins song - titled "scar". I was fascinated by the words and the way she told her story. To this day, I always read lyrics to songs I love.
I guess in a way, I'm so fascinated by the human condition, lyrics seem like a way to share those feelings with others.
Wildkinship to me, is that - a way to share words, feelings, experiences and.... love... but without the music.
A different form of art, something for the space you spend time healing and changing. Every print I make starts there, in a real human moment.
Seeing these words find their way into people's homes, on walls, in nurseries, in the hands of someone who really needed them is something I genuinely didn't expect to feel this much about.
Every order still stops me. So I wanted to say, thank you for that.
I don't really always know where I'm taking this, but my heart is what has led me to here and I'm pretty proud to have followed it this far.
Thanks so much for being here, I appreciate you so much.
Lots of love, B