Welcome to the last day of 2019. If your decade and year have been anything like mine, you have mixed feelings about seeing it go. For me, it would be putting it mildly to say that the past ten years have been a roller coaster. It has been a time of love, loss, pain and growth.
If I was being honest, I am sort of sorry to see it go.
The Butterfly Room
Early 2010 – Northern Iowa
I sat on the floor surrounded by thebags that I had carried in with me. Those bags – three 30-gallonblack trash bags – contained every possession that my daughter Emmaand I had left. It was a far cry from the two story, three bedroomhome we had left just a few weeks before.
“Mommy? Isn’t the butterfly roompretty? I picked a good one, didn’t I?”
My Monkey Child.
My only child and the light of my lifeasked me as she looked around the room that shelter staff had allowedher to pick the previous night. With its cheery yellow walls andcolorful butterflies covering the walls, it tried to hide itself frombeing what it really was; a temporary home for those who had – forwhatever reason – failed at life and taking care of themselves.
I needed a drink.
I couldn’t have a drink. Mosthomeless or women’s shelters do not allow alcohol and this one was nodifferent. Alcohol was a sure-fire way to finding yourself sleepingon the streets. With a five-year-old child, that was a risk I couldnot take.
Still, I needed a drink and I neededone badly. It had been over a month since my last one and I hadmistakenly thought I was past the needing one part.
I was wrong and my shaking handsonly proved it.
I looked at the clock. I needed to getup. I needed to feed my child. I needed to learn how to live againwithout my soon-to-be ex-husband there to take care of me, but nomatter how much I willed my legs to move; they wouldn’t. Onehundred-pound logs weighed down by cement that wouldn’t move.
I cried and I kept crying.
I cried for the life that I had lostand the child who was now caught in the middle. I cried for thepotential that I knew I once had but had wasted. I cried for all theplans and dreams that once filled my head but instead were lost atthe end of a bottle and the front of a fist.
I cried for the husband who I had onlyseen through rose colored glasses. I cried for what felt like theloss of my sanity. I cried because I suddenly felt as if I really hadlost my mind.
“Maybe I have,” Ithought.
I cried from the paralyzing fear that Iwould lose her. I cried out of the fear of the unknown; because Iknew with more certainty than I had ever known anything before that Iabsolutely couldn’t take care of myself and I certainly couldn’ttake care of her.
I cried until I was certain I didn’thave a single tear left, but the tears never stopped coming, my handsnever stopped shaking and she continued to look at me with a worrylike no five-year-old child should ever have.
Still, I sat on the floor at the footof a butterfly covered bed and cried.
“You’re better than this.”
Buried and forgotten long ago, thosewords came to me. They weren’t my own, but words spoken to meexactly ten years before. Words spoken by a high school Sociologyteacher to a drug and alcohol addicted teenager as she turned hertextbook back in so that she could drop out of high school for thefinal time.
They were words spoken with no thoughtas to how they would impact that naive girl’s life. Words that oneman had no idea would change not one person’s life, but four overtime.
Words that were said to a girl whocouldn’t have cared less. Words that were ignored at the time theywere spoken, but were planted deep and hidden away within the darkrecesses of her mind only to take root when she would need them themost.
Words that would change the verycore of who I was.
Four simple words.
“You’re better than this.”
I sighed a sigh so deep it rattled thevery bones of my soul. I needed to get up. I raised my head, lookedat those three bags and then at my daughter. She smiled that innocentand angelic smile that melted my heart each time I saw it. She was soforgiving, and this time was no different. For a moment, I wished Icould go back to an innocence like that.
It was time to get up off the floor.Time to take move on and time to put the pieces back together again.Time to learn how to be the Mother that she deserved; time to learnhow to be human again.
I don’t know that I fully believedthose four words, but I could certainly pretend for a while that Idid. Over the past few years, I had gotten very good at pretending.Pretending that everything was okay. Pretending that I wasn’thurting or that I didn’t feel dead inside. Pretending that I wassober; pretending that I was okay with being sober.
Wiping my eyes, I willed my legs towork once more. Finally standing, I ran my still shaking hands downmy legs to steady them and pasted on my very best “fake it ‘tillyou make it smile.”
“Come on. Let’s go get an icecream.”
I had exactly six dollars in my pocket.
Ten Years Later
I sit at my desk this morning writing on a website that was not even a far fetched idea that afternoon ten years ago. Tomorrow, we face the beginning of not just a new year but a new decade.
Quiet reflection is the name of the game today.
Ten years ago, I was an entirely different person. I’m sure most of us were, but I quite literally almost was.
- I was a drunk.
- I was broken from abuse.
- I was scared to stand on my own.
- I was homeless.
- I had never once supported myself and I had never once supported my then five-year old daughter without the help of a man.
- and I was terrified of a world where I was on my own.
But if the past ten years have taught me anything, it’s that I am far stronger than I ever thought I was.
We left that shelter at the end of 2010 and by 2012, I had begun to figure you who I was. I had sobered up, become the mother my child needed and created a business that would carry my family to heights I had never dreamed of.
Since then I have ended not one, but two relationships, married the one I should have waited for, gained a bonus child and more.
I have lost friends and gained others.
I have lost family and I have willingly walked away from other family members.
I have taught and I have been taught.
I have fallen, climbed back up and at times, been carried by those who love me.
and I have carried those I love when they have needed it.
I have overcome.
and most of all, I am finally – after allowing years of heartbreak – happy and right where I want to be.
Because in reality, this decade has been a truly amazing one and one I am incredibly proud of.
Happy New Year 2020
I don’t know what the past decade has been like to you, my dear friends. What I do know is this:
You have a clean slate tomorrow and every day after.
Make the next ten years what you want them to be and go find your happiness if you aren’t right now.
Don’t spend the next ten years regretting.
It is my sincerest wish for you and every reader of this blog that 2020 and the decade following it is one of the best of your lives.
Happy New Year!