The Great Burial: How We Lost Ourselves and Why It's Time to Start Digging
You know exactly when it happened.
Maybe not the date. But you remember the feeling.
The day you took your paintbrushes, your dance shoes, your half-written novel, your wild-ass dreams—and you buried them. Not because you wanted to. Because someone told you it was time to "grow up." To "be realistic." To "focus on what matters."
And just like that, you became a Surface Dweller.
The Good Woman Industrial Complex Got You
Let me paint you a picture of your burial:
Age 8: "Stop being so loud. Nice girls don't make scenes."
Age 15: "That's not a real career. Pick something practical."
Age 22: "You can pursue your art after you're financially stable."
Age 30: "Mothers don't have time for hobbies."
Age 40: "It's too late to start now."
Layer by layer, shovel by shovel, they buried the real you under "responsibility" and "maturity" and "putting others first."
Now you're 40 or 50-something, suffocating in your good life, and you can't even remember what used to make your heart race.
That's not an accident. That's the Good Woman Industrial Complex working exactly as designed.
Surface Dwellers vs. Excavators: Which One Are You?
Surface Dwellers live their entire lives above ground, performing the roles they've been assigned. They:
Say "I don't have time for hobbies"
Can't remember what they enjoyed before kids/career/marriage
Feel guilty for wanting anything that doesn't serve others
Believe their buried dreams are childish fantasies
Think this suffocating feeling is "just life"
Excavators felt something shift underground and grabbed a fucking shovel. They:
Know something real is buried under all that duty
Started with 15 minutes of digging and couldn't stop
Document their artifacts (the poems, the paintings, the passions)
Share their excavation stories with other diggers
Understand this isn't self-improvement—it's resurrection
The Archaeological Evidence: My Personal Excavation
I buried my voice after high school. Not metaphorically—literally.
Life got "real." College. Career. Motherhood. The full Good Woman Industrial Complex package. Sure, I'd sing in my car, maybe the shower when no one was home. But that wasn't really singing. That was just... existing with background music.
For decades, I was the perfect Surface Dweller. Corporate drone by day, everything-to-everyone by night. "No time for extracurricular activities" became my mantra. As if singing—the thing that used to make me feel most alive—was some frivolous extra credit assignment.
Then my parents died.
Grief has a way of cracking you open, showing you all the ways you've been slowly dying too. In that raw space of loss, I finally asked myself: What else have I buried? What else have I been mourning without knowing it?
The Excavation Began at a Pride Event
A women's chorus booth. Just a table with some flyers and smiling faces. But something underground shifted when I saw it.
I signed up for more information like I was committing a crime. Then came the audition—my first since high school. I was a bundle of nerves, showing up as a stranger, not knowing a soul, feeling like a fraud who'd forgotten how to really sing.
But these women—these fellow Excavators—saw me. Warm, inviting voices said, "You belong here." Not because I was perfect. Because I was digging.
My Daily Dig Looks Like This:
Rehearsing music at home. Not in stolen moments in the car. Real practice. Real commitment. Real priority.
My confidence is still excavating itself—I can feel it there, slowly rising through the layers of doubt and decades of silence. Some rehearsals I'm strong. Some I'm shaky. But I'm THERE. Singing. Unearthed.
What Changed When I Started Digging:
I became someone who puts "me" on the calendar. Someone who invites friends and family to performances—look what I dug up! Look who I've always been underneath!
Every person who's attended has been impressed. Not just by the performance, but by the transformation. By watching someone they thought they knew reveal an entire buried cathedral of sound.
Here's what I know now: Starting with one thing—no matter how small—sets off an archaeological chain reaction. One artifact leads to another. One passion unearths the next. One shovel of dirt reveals an entire buried civilization of who you really are.
They buried my voice because they knew what would happen if I kept it.
Now I sing with sixty other women who also grabbed shovels. Sixty other Excavators who refused to stay buried. And together? We don't just make music.
We make the ground shake.
Your Excavation Toolkit: Three Sacred Practices
1. The Childhood Reconnaissance Mission
Set a timer for 20 minutes. Close your eyes. Find yourself at age 8-10.
What is she doing that makes her lose track of time? What is she doing that adults keep telling her to stop? What lights her up so bright it makes grown-ups nervous?
That's your first dig site. Mark it.
2. The Deathbed Download
Morbid? Good. The Surface World hates reminders of mortality because it exposes their lie that you have infinite time to "get around to it."
One year left. No one to impress. What do you finally dig up? What do you reclaim? What passion do you unearth from its grave?
Your first thought is pure coordinates. Everything after is the Complex trying to rebury it.
3. The Daily Dig Ritual
15 minutes. Every day. Non-negotiable.
While Surface Dwellers scroll Instagram, you dig. While they complain about having no time, you excavate. While they perform exhaustion, you resurrect.
Document what you find. Share it with other Excavators. Build your evidence file that proves you existed before they buried you.
The Underground Truth They Don't Want You to Know
Every passion you unearth weakens their system. Every dream you dig up cracks their foundation. Every woman who picks up a shovel inspires another to start digging.
That's why they work so hard to keep you buried. That's why they call you "selfish" for wanting to paint. "Unrealistic" for wanting to write. "Too old" to start dancing again.
They buried you because they feared what you'd become if you stayed whole.
Your Initiation Moment
Right now, reading this, you're standing at the dig site. You can feel her down there—the woman you were before they got to you. She's been patient. She's been waiting. But she's done being buried.
You have two choices:
Stay on the surface. Keep performing. Keep believing that "someday" you'll have time for what you love. Keep letting them convince you that wanting anything is wrong.
Pick up the shovel. Join the Excavators. Start your Daily Dig. Document your artifacts. Crack their foundation one passion at a time.
The Excavation Begins Now
Start small. One shovel of dirt. One 15-minute dig. One tiny artifact of who you used to be.
Maybe it's humming while you cook (when did you stop singing?). Maybe it's buying a single art supply. Maybe it's writing one paragraph of that story rattling in your chest.
The size doesn't matter. The digging does.
Because here's what I know after years of excavation work: What's buried isn't dead. It's waiting.
And once you start digging? Once you feel her pulse under all that earth? You can't unknow she's there. You can't pretend the burial was necessary. You can't go back to the surface and pretend everything's fine.
Welcome to the Excavation. We've been waiting for you.
