Honestly, Sandie

Last November, the day before my birthday, I was cleaning dog pee out of my fifteen-year-old son’s carpet when I got hit with one of those weird little realizations that sneaks up on you in adulthood.

The kind that starts with carpet cleaner and ends with emotional archaeology.

Koda, our dog, had apparently decided my son’s room was now his preferred place to process whatever existential crisis he himself was going through. So there I was scrubbing the carpet, listening to old music, trying not to let the smell of dog urine fully humble me as a woman, when No Rain by Blind Melon came on.

And suddenly I was eighteen again.

Which honestly feels rude.

I started thinking about my first apartment.

My boyfriend was seventeen. I had a roommate. Somehow we qualified for this apartment completely on our own which, at the time, felt wildly adult and impressive. Looking back now, I’d just like to pause respectfully and ask:

Where were the adults?

The apartment was in a rough part of West Covina. Not “artsy neighborhood with character” rough. More like “double check the locks before unloading groceries” rough.

But what hit me while scrubbing that carpet wasn’t even the apartment itself.

It was realizing:

I don’t remember my mother ever coming to see it.

Not once.

Not when we got the keys.
Not to see if I was safe.
Not to ask if I needed groceries or furniture or guidance or literally anything.

Nothing.

And somehow, for years, I didn’t think that was strange.

Actually, the more I stood there thinking about it, the more memories started linking themselves together quietly in the background.

Because I also don’t remember her coming to see the room I moved into at my grandma’s house when I left home at seventeen for my first year of college.

I don’t remember conversations about school either.

No “How are classes?”
No “Do you like your professors?”
No “Are you overwhelmed?”
No “Are you okay?”

At seventeen, everyone acted like I was grown.

Looking back, I think I was just unattended.

And before anybody starts assigning villains and background music, that’s not entirely the point. Life is usually more layered than that. This is less about blame and more about what becomes normal when you grow up inside it.

Because when something starts young enough, you don’t question it.

You adapt.

You become “independent.”
You become “mature.”
You become “wise beyond your years.”

Meanwhile you are literally a teenager signing leases in questionable neighborhoods thinking:
Wow. Look at me thriving.

It’s strange what adulthood reveals accidentally.

You’ll be cleaning a carpet one minute and suddenly realize the younger version of you deserved more softness than she got.

And maybe that’s why No Rain hit me so hard that day.

Because underneath the quirky 90s bee girl energy and the puddles and the dreamy weirdness, the whole song is really just someone quietly saying:

“I just want someone to say to me, I’ll always be there when you wake.”

And maybe that’s what so many of us were looking for all along.

Not perfection.
Not saving.
Not even answers.

Just steadiness.

Just someone saying:

“I see you.”
“I came to check on you.”
“You don’t have to carry all of this alone.”

The truth is, there are so many women walking around this world holding entire emotional ecosystems together while quietly wondering if they themselves are too much.

Too emotional.
Too deep.
Too sensitive.
Too complicated.
Too questioning.
Too loud.

Meanwhile, half the people around them survive emotionally because those same women keep daring to feel things out loud.

I think some of us were built to process publicly so other people feel less alone privately.

And maybe that’s why I write.

Not because I have life figured out.
Not because my story is more important than anyone else’s.
But because somewhere out there is another woman who learned how to survive before she ever learned how to be cared for.

Another girl who wandered because staying still inside herself hurt worse.

Another mother trying to love her children in ways she herself never experienced.

Another woman wondering if questioning everything means she’s broken.

I don’t think it does.

I think wandering has always been part of becoming.

I think some of the strongest women in history probably looked completely lost while they were finding themselves.

And I think community should be something you choose freely, not something that punishes you for wondering who you are outside of it.

So if you’re out there rebuilding yourself quietly…
questioning things…
feeling deeply…
leading people while secretly trying to heal too…

Keep going.

The invisible pack behind you is larger than you think.

Life is hard.
But it is beautiful too.

And sometimes the women who felt the least protected become the ones most committed to creating safety for everyone else.

Maybe that’s the real story here.

Not that nobody came to see it.

But that I survived long enough to become the woman who would.

“No Rain” by Blind Melon was used as creative inspiration for this piece. I do not own the song or lyrics. Something about sad 90s alternative music and emotional reflection while cleaning carpets just feels spiritually correct.