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Mork Calling Orson

Come in, Spirit Guides

Leah Welborn
The Narrative Arc
6 min readDec 14, 2023

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Original artwork by the author

Had you asked me a decade ago what I thought about “Spirit Guides” I might have nervously giggled and said something like, “not much.” But now I can see that they’ve been with me all along — they even came to me through my family’s TV when I was a little girl.

There have been stretches of time throughout my life, often spanning months and sometimes years, in which I’ve had very few pleasant interactions with other people. That was especially true of my childhood.

Like so many who grew up depressed and anxious in an abusive environment, there seemed to be no end — let alone ‘light’ there — to the tunnel in which I found myself. The flickering blue light of the TV was my hearth and my altar.

My life was dominated by what I saw on TV and how my vision of myself and my reality both fell desperately short of it. I studied how things should be through television. I lamented not being Samantha on Bewitched (though I was probably more aligned with her mother Endora and would NEVER have gotten involved with that loathsome adman Derwood), or Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie.

Really, I wanted to be anything but the depressed, sweaty little autistic girl I was.

It was around that time that I first heard of Boulder, Colorado, in the context of a…

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The Narrative Arc
The Narrative Arc

Published in The Narrative Arc

Medium’s best creative nonfiction — memoirs and personal essays. Welcoming writers from every walk of life.

Leah Welborn
Leah Welborn

Written by Leah Welborn

Empower Your Magical Self with me. I'm the Mystic Autistic, a writer and spiritual baddie. LeahWelborn.net.

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