Beginning to unpack it all…
Like any story, mine has a beginning, middle, and (current) end. Unlike other stories, however, My memories feel less clear about the beginning and middle, I only feel overly clear about the current. Externally, I’m somehow a 39-year-old woman who just recently had so much click together. I’m not sure if this happens to most of us at this age or if I’m behind. Maybe we all hit this age and have some sort of revelation about the things which have been the most challenging to us in life. For me, mine is relationships with men. Something I know, and anyone around me can see it. Logic shows I’m the common denominator, but I’m also just starting to figure out so many pieces of the puzzle. We don’t get to pick the worlds we’re born into. We’re born, and handed the life we’re handed for approximately 18 years. After that, it’s up to us I guess. But that's the problem, if you give anyone all of the pieces to build a house but don’t tell them how to actually build the house, they may get pretty far on their own. It will be a little weak and they will learn a lot from it, but ultimately they will have a proper home in the end. If you however give someone all of the pieces to build a house except for nails, they are going to have a significantly more difficult time pulling a house together. They may have screws, glue, and other things which hold their home together but it will be very different than the first home and they will have to persevere in ways the first homeowner never did just to get a lesser home.
So, after 39 years I’ve just now figured out I was handed the pieces to the second house. The good in my world was equal if not more than the bad, however, a lot of good most definitely doesn’t mean perfect and my world included some major foundational problems. I was born in Emmetsburg, IA to my mom, and my birth father. We left the hospital and went home to our trailer. It’s wild to me now to think when I was a baby, my home was a trailer. Even just typing that sitting in my beautiful home means a lot of work went into getting to where I am now. So I take a deep breath and remind myself to have a grateful heart. My mother and birth father were together just a year, and he was so physically abusive my mom left him and had absolutely nothing. Her priority was to get me to safety. We had nothing, so much so we had to move in with friends for a while. These are very unglamorous parts of my life. I recently had a close college friend tell me she didn’t even know these parts, that's how much I’ve worked to push them away. These are also the parts of my life where I’m reminded of where my perseverance comes from, my mom is so wildly resilient.
Unfortunately being an abusive man didn’t stop the courts from forcing me to go see my birth father every third weekend of the month. My childhood memories include bouts of anxiety-riddled, physical illness the day before our mandated weekends together. Leaving my world and going back to a trailer for an entire weekend. This was a time long before cell phones and I was not allowed to call my mother even from the landline. He would tell me frequently that “someday he’d tell me the real story about my mom and who she was”. Eventually, when I was around 13, I remember calling my mom one day while my birth father was out doing the farm chores. He came in and caught me on the phone, and was so furious he called my Grandfather and demanded he take me back to my moms' house immediately. He screamed at me and told me the only reason he ever wanted me to come to visit him for the last 12 years was that he knew how much it upset my mom. Shortly after that incident, my stepdad adopted me. My birth father forced my parents to pay all of the child support he had ever paid back to him in exchange for him signing my adoption papers and his rights away. Definitely at 39 and now as a mother myself, reading my own story is unbelievable. There is nothing that could ever be done to have me separate from my children. They are my life and my heart.
A tremendous amount of messy, toxic relationships have been the result of having this be part of my life's foundation. My heart has yearned to be brave enough to talk about it, but it’s always felt too intimidating, scary, and unknown. The feeling doesn’t go away though, no matter how much I work to stuff it down. Ignoring the tough conversations is what got me to this age and just now sorting through it all. We can do hard things as Glennon Doyle has taught us, and I lean into that sometimes hourly to get through a tough moment. Why I’m the most compelled to talk about it finally, is because I am so fucking proud of how much I’ve grown and persevered. I have never felt healthier mentally and physically than I do now. My peace is present frequently and I’m so grateful for the life I have. I committed to myself when I started this blog it was going to be a behind-the-scenes of my growth. Even if it’s only for myself, being held accountable for never stopping this growth. It feels so good and freeing and I want this for my children. They will learn by example so I have to keep going.
So much of my growth has been learning boundaries. It’s been learning when to lean into “when they go low we go high” (which now tends to be how I generally fall) or when it feels important enough to stand up to. One thing I know for sure now is my boundary of allowing nearly complete strangers to be vocal to me about my life and what it looks like. Being single, in Iowa, nearing 40 takes a whole bunch of bravery to put yourself out there in the dating world. Even though, I do my best to try it because I know even though I feel so content with life and fulfilled someday I’d love to have a partner. So onto a dating app I went, only to be messaged by an acquaintance replying to one of my photos: “I love how you don’t mention you have multiple kids from multiple men”
Stunned isn’t probably the correct word for the feelings I had when I first saw it, read it, and realized I had two options. Let it go, or hold him accountable. But first, I spiraled a bit. I was home, with my kids sleeping soundly and I went down a (temporary) path of questioning everything with my life and if my kids are ok. Questioning if everyone around me thinks this way about me. I was up most of the night wavering between anger and mostly making a commitment to be done with all humans, to just stay in my home, with my boys, and be in our safe space always. An entire novel could be spent explaining why I am where I am when it comes to relationships but the reality is I had to start to be honest with myself about the foundation first. While I’ve been so fortunate and hustled in so many areas of my life, my relationship trauma as many have told me, would be an incredible Lifetime movie storyline and not the good kind. Instead, I woke up this morning, processed through the day, and reminded myself my tribe loves us fiercely. Anyone who we allow into our world cares about us so much, that they wouldn’t let us leave even if I tried to hide. So instead, also as Glennon Doyle has taught us, I made a commitment to myself to not let people make me feel that way, but to also hold people accountable for words so hurtful and unnecessary. You will no longer get to use me as a pawn in your need to fill some sort of bucket of your own you’re trying to fulfill by hurting others. You can take that elsewhere, ideally nowhere, but at minimum, it’s not allowed in my space in my world which I have worked so fucking hard for. We have peace finally, and I will continue to fiercely protect my family's peace. While I know my growth is so good, what was so horrendous to say to me in my past may have taken me down for weeks, maybe months. Many of my days would have been spent circling on it for so long, that I would have missed the good in front of me. That's no longer, you do not get any more of my time, unkind human, mean words are not welcome here. You do not get to hide behind some sort of private digital wall and bomb my world with your unkindness. My family is beautiful, and I wake up every day so incredibly thankful for my boys. I am throwing these unkind words right back to you. Thank you for this freedom and thank you for the fire to start standing up for myself. There is a significant difference between letting things roll to keep the peace, and letting go of things that someone should absolutely be held accountable for. So tonight I’ll fall asleep at peace again because it’s yet another day I’m leaning into this life of mine and so grateful for how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve grown. It’s the fuel to keep going and continue to grow and reflect. If my life started as a 15 piece puzzle, it’s now moved into the 10,000 piece puzzle and I’m committed to flipping them all over and going through the process to connect them all here. Thank you for following along with this growth journey.
