Witch, its been rough

Before we descend into this spiral of shadow and sorrow, consider this your official trigger warning: no blood rituals, no actual hexes, and no self-harm. Just your classic flavor of soul-crushing grief, depressive fog, and existential dread. You know, the usual cursed cocktail.

When I lost my mom, I didn’t just lose a person — I lost my anchor, my light, my personal chaos coordinator. Watching her battle cancer was like watching a goddess get dragged down by a monster, and the worst part? I couldn’t slay the damn thing. I was powerless. And in the end, when I whispered to the universe to let her rest, I hated myself for it. Even now, that guilt lingers like smoke after a house fire.

The funeral? A blur. A dark, exhausting haze of hugs from strangers and name-dropping from the Ghosts of Field Hockey Past. People poured in from every dusty corner of her life — high school friends, coworkers, distant relatives I’d never met — all singing her praises while I stood there, barely breathing. She clearly left a mark. I felt like the smudged ink left behind.

And yet… for years, that one desperate, quiet prayer I made at her bedside haunted me. What if I hadn’t wished for the pain to end? Would she have stayed? Would she have won? That thought gnawed at me like some demonic raccoon in the attic of my soul.

I shut down. Lights off. No one home. I was a haunted house of a human being. Existing, but empty. I ate, I slept, I worked just enough to afford more food and more sleep. I became the kind of person that ghosts would look at and say, “Damn, she’s more lifeless than we are.”

I never planned anything reckless, but I did have one recurring thought on a cursed loop: It should’ve been me. My mom was the good one. The kind-hearted, big-souled, warrior-hearted woman. And me? Just a hot mess with a Wi-Fi connection.

This phase lasted… longer than I’d like to admit. But eventually, a shift happened. Not some grand lightning-strike awakening. Just… background noise. Static. TV.

I started watching shows. Not really watching at first. More like letting the flickering light distract the demons while I lay there, half-alive. But it helped. Somehow. Somewhere in between reruns and rewatches, my soul started to flicker again.

One Tree Hill. Eat. Work. Answer a text (maybe). Repeat.

Grey’s Anatomy. Eat. Work. Ghost my friends less.

Greenleaf. Cry. Eat pasta. Repeat.

This routine — my little ritual — became sacred. The stories, the characters, the actors? They didn’t just entertain me. They resurrected me. TV gave me a reason to keep breathing until I remembered how to do it on my own.

Now, let’s summon Greenleaf into the circle — my comfort show, my cinematic séance, the one thing that felt like a heartbeat in the silence. Watching it again, years after the storm, when I was less ghost and more girl, I finally saw why it had been calling to me like a hymn I didn’t know I needed.

My ties to the church didn’t just fray when my mom died — they snapped like cursed thread. The day I asked a pastor why someone as good as her had to suffer, he gave me the kind of answer that makes people walk out and never look back: “Don’t question God’s plan.”

Right. Because blind obedience is super healing when your world’s on fire.

Oh, That was the day I rage-quit religion.

But Greenleaf… that show didn’t just speak to me — it cracked something open. For once, I didn’t feel like the outsider skulking at the edge of the sanctuary. I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have felt cast out completely if I’d grown up in a church with a little more Grace (pun fully consecrated).

Grace Greenleaf — a walking sermon of defiance and deeply buried fire — made me feel less alone in my doubt. She carried questions like weapons, and her silence spoke louder than most sermons I’ve endured. She showed me that faith isn’t blind — it sees too much and chooses to stay anyway. That kind of strength? It felt like home.

By the final episode, I was ugly crying into my lap, chanting “Make me new” like it was a damn spell. And maybe it was. Because that’s exactly what it did — it helped make me new.

Now? I carry a spell on my skin. Rise Up, inked in the handwriting of Grace Greenleaf herself — a permanent ward against the shadows that try to pull me under. A reminder that I’ve come too far to go quietly.

So to the cast and creators of Greenleaf: thank you. You made more than a show. You made a sanctuary for the broken, a battleground for the weary, and a mirror for those still trying to recognize themselves.

And to the actress who gifted me the words that I now carry in ink (you probably won’t read this, but I’ll say it anyway): thank you. For your kindness, your brilliance, and your beautifully badass characters. You gave me hope when all I had were reruns and regrets.

And finally — to all the fan girls, fan gays, fan theys out there clinging to fictional characters like life rafts: I get it. Watch your comfort show for the hundredth time. Send love to your favorite actors. Just… don’t be creepy. Be witchy. Be chaotic. Be the glitter-covered goblin of your own healing arc. But never be creepy.

We rise. Not with grace, but with grit and spells whispered between episodes.

Even if it took every ounce of magic just to stay.