The Witch’s Burden

Pain, protest, and persistence across generations

I spent the weekend in a magical solstice portal. Connecting with my ancestors, diving into the rich currents of Italian folk magic. Learning June 23rd and 24th is a time when Italians honour the Night of the Witches. A sacred moment remembering those burned and persecuted for their wisdom and power.

So maybe it’s no surprise I woke up in pain. Neck, shoulders, spine. Like I carried the weight of generations through a night’s sleep. That ancestral ache, the raw grief of witches long gone but never forgotten, lodged deep in my fascia.

Sure, maybe it’s my terrible pillow. But this kind of pain doesn’t show up randomly. It’s spiritual, emotional, ancestral. It’s the body holding what the heart and mind can’t yet express.

Lately, with more talk of WWIII swirling, the chaos in the world feels closer than ever. And in moments like this, all I want is to hold my loved ones tight.

My grandparents fled war-torn countries to build us a better life. I’ve carried that feeling of separation from our motherland every day of my life. It’s taken me a long time to realise this.

I never wanted to settle. I never wanted to stay still. I was always jetting off on the next adventure. Chasing dreams, trying to find belonging on the move.

But something is shifting. I don’t want to be constantly moving solo anymore. I want to be around people who love me. I want to be in a place that feels like home. I still want to adventure… but I want to have someone by my side.

I thought running away to the desert would bring me closer to my dreams, eliminate distractions, sharpen my focus. Instead, it’s shown me just how much I yearn for roots, for touch, for belonging.

And maybe that yearning is part of the ancestral ache I woke up with this morning.

In the early hours of the morning I lie in bed wondering if I’m still wrapped in that solstice sorrow. Or if it’s just the unbearable weight of the world grinding me down. Either way, I’m stiff with dread.

I try to brush it off. I try to just get on with my day. But I can’t. The ache stays. It pulses through me.

And then come the thoughts. The ones I can’t shake.

Why is it so fucking painful to be human?

Why do we have to live inside these systems none of us consented to? Why does it feel like I’m constantly severing my soul just to exist?

I feel trapped in this limbo. Away from my family, away from my lover, away from everything that feels safe. I want to stay home and unravel. But I can’t. I have to go to work. I have to earn money. I have to put on a smile and show up like I’m fine.

And the worst part? I know what I need. I know what my body is asking for. But I can’t give it to myself. Because I have bills. Because I’m trying to rebuild. Because this is the world we live in.

I feel like I’m in a cage and I know it. But every time I try to claw my way out, the bars close in tighter. It’s a prison I’ve seen before, in visions, in dreams, in the bones of a past life. I’m trapped. And nothing I do seems to make it better.

What do we do when the world is collapsing and we still have to clock in?

There’s war. There’s genocide. There’s late-stage capitalism chewing us alive. There are billionaires playing chess with our lives. And somehow, I’m supposed to get dressed and sit in a chair for eight hours like none of it is happening?

I worry that I’ll never get to experience true freedom in this lifetime. I ache for culture, for slowness, for beauty, for connection. I want to explore the richness of the world, to sit with strangers and share meals in languages I barely understand. But instead, I’m crying on my way to work, trying to hold it together.

I don’t want to die in this machine.

Sometimes I feel like we’re all ghosts, haunting our own lives. Crying in cars, laughing at memes, checking emails between breakdowns. Rage-scrolling Instagram while eating lunch. Yearning for something real. Something soft. Something that doesn’t feel like betrayal.

And the most painful part? I know I’m not alone. I know so many people are feeling this exact thing. We’re all quietly breaking. Quietly performing. Quietly screaming into the void. Or some loudly sharing it on social media.

I asked, this morning, why I was being made to face it all alone. I know how vital community is. I know we’re not meant to carry this on our own. But here I am — isolated. Holding it. Trying to soothe myself. Wishing someone would wrap me up and say, “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

So I turn to ChatGPT to work through my dread.

I told it I had to get ready for work. That I had to go to an interview I actually wanted, which only confused things more. How do you want something and want to escape at the same time? How do you chase hope while your nervous system is collapsing?

I left the house with a lump in my throat. The ache in my neck hadn’t gone away. But I pushed on, like we all do. I showed up.

The day before, I spent entirely at home. Just with myself, riding the waves of emotion. Woke up to the news of Trump bombing Iran and an endless flood of WWIII memes.

So I danced to Italian music, cooked a roast, cried, raged…

Sometimes the only answer to this chaotic world is to put on a playlist and dance for as long as it takes to let every feeling move through. Scream, cry, laugh, rage, fall apart — let it all out.

Yesterday, my heart was held by all my favourite Italian classics. No matter what happens, my ties to that land, and the sense of my ancestors walking beside me, always remind me that things will be okay.

And that’s the part that guts me. How we’re expected to show up anyway. No matter what. No matter the war. No matter the grief. No matter the soul-level exhaustion.

I’m tired of severing my soul.

Tired of pretending I’m okay when I’m not. Tired of slicing parts of myself off to fit into systems that were never designed for people like me. Like us.

Because the truth is, most of us are in pain. Most of us feel like something is off. Most of us are quietly wondering if there’s a way out.

And we’ve been gaslit into believing that our discomfort is a personal problem, instead of a logical response to an utterly broken world.

What kind of world is this… where our nervous systems are fried before breakfast and we’re still expected to perform productivity? Where the soul’s cry is a background noise we learn to mute?

I don’t have answers. I just know the ache is real. I know the grief is valid. I know that being awake to the world hurts. But I would rather feel everything than go numb.

So I write this now, not as a solution, but as a testimony. A record of a morning where everything hurt and I showed up anyway. A fragment of truth in a timeline that demands fiction.

Maybe you’re feeling it too. The dread. The ache. The grief. The quiet rage. The flicker of hope you still dare to hold, even when it makes no sense.

If so, you’re not broken. You’re not weak. You’re not alone.

You’re awake.

And your feelings make sense.

The system is sick. Not you.

Let’s stop carrying it in silence.

Let’s name it. Let’s grieve it. Let’s dream something else.

Even if we still have to show up to work in the meantime.