“Do you remember how I told you this would utterly destroy me? How our kids needed every ounce of you? You knew how much we needed and loved you. I reminded you every single day. But you didn’t plan that moment, did you? Because if you did, you would have known how it killed us too. You wouldn’t have done it.”
“I felt so embarrassed. I started putting makeup on my scars and wearing only tube top bikinis. I started wearing a bra all the time and wouldn’t remove it during intimate times with my husband. I went from cancer free and ecstatic about the surgery results, to mortified to even show my breasts.”
“I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I looked around embarrassed, hoping no one else heard him. This was it—I was going to let him have it. All those years of pretending people’s comments didn’t hurt me were going to come to an end. But then he looked at me with a warm glow, ‘We never could have kids.’”
“I was in line for the fitting room when the lady in front of me commented she really liked the pants I was holding. ‘Thanks, I’ve really been needing to buy some post-pregnancy work pants,’ I said. ‘Oh, where is your baby while you work?,’ she asked. Nonchalantly, I replied, ‘He goes to daycare and really loves it.’ As she walked away, she mumbled it. When she said it, I knew she just didn’t know.”
“We went to see Cora for the last time. I washed her hair and gently cleaned her body with a washcloth. I dressed her in our favorite headband and swaddled her tightly. Her sister gave Cora a kiss on her forehead. We told her to say goodbye. ‘Bye bye, Baby Cora.’ My mom took our eldest away so she could pass with my husband and I alone. She was so beautiful, looking at us with such deep love in her eyes.”
“‘Is that me? I’m a baby?!,’ my 3-year-old asks as we swipe through a photo album on social media. ‘That’s you when you weren’t even 1 yet!’ He’s intrigued. Growing up, my mom took pictures of us only at special events. Over the years, those photo prints became scarce. The existing ones lived in a box somewhere, lost or damaged. I want something different for my children.”
“My dad found me. I was covered in bruises, rug burns and cuts head to toe. He called 911, immediately searched for those pills and found both bottles were empty. I have no recollection of taking any pills. I woke up to my best friend standing over me. ‘Why are you looking at me like I died? Where am I?’ They were my prescriptions from MY doctor. I wasn’t getting them off the streets, so I couldn’t possibly have a problem.”
“I never planned on writing my story. While I was more fearful of the future than I care to admit, I remember leaving the courthouse the day I filed for divorce feeling like I could breathe for the first time in years. It was the feeling of freedom. For years, I allowed the world to wash over me, resigned to the lies I’d been told about who I was, who I wasn’t, and who I could never be. On the hard days, I have to remind myself to call these thoughts what they are: lies.”
“It’s so goopy. It’s E V E R Y W H E R E! In crevasses you didn’t know existed. It’s up the back, and down the legs. More creeps onto your hand with every wipe. You’re gagging. You pick baby up and hold him Lion King style, praying that none splatters onto the floor as you shuffle towards the sink. ‘This isn’t that bad… this isn’t… that… bad…’ You’re trying not to be dramatic. But you’re totally being dramatic.”
“I was terrified my classmates wouldn’t see my worth. So, I threw rocks, said ‘bad words,’ and acted tough. The worst, though, is that I befriended kids I knew would let me get away with treating them terribly. I took advantage of them and their effortless kindness. I never want to be the cause of pain for anyone. It’s one of the worst things in the world to feel worthless. I know because I’ve been a bully to myself as well.”
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