“I remember my husband and I agreeing our child would only watch 1 hour of television a day. HA! Now, Peppa Pig is basically our 3rd child. ‘We won’t be the parents giving our child a phone in a restaurant.’ Sometimes, watching other children play with play-doh on YouTube is THE only way to avoid death stares. Absolutely nothing can prepare you for life with two under two.”
“On my birthday, I put a gun in my mouth as my girlfriend pounded on the bathroom door begging me not to kill myself. I will never forget the taste of the cold metal against my tongue. I pulled the trigger, but the pin didn’t strike the bullet casing—a failure to fire. I had guns in my life since I was a child and I will never understand why that round malfunctioned. I had to accept I’d survived some of the most toxic environments imaginable. I needed to stop making excuses and take my life back.”
“Don’t get married for the way you feel now. Get married because the person you’re looking at is the one you want to struggle with. Marry the one you want to continually choose. You’re going to clean puke off the floor for them. You’ll stand together as loved ones are buried. You will hurt one another.”
“The first time I dropped my daughter off at ballet for her father to pick her up after her class, I remember bawling my eyes out in the car, regretting my decision to divorce. I came home to a big, empty house and sat on the couch, just wailing. As a mother, I’m programmed to tend to my children, but without them, what was I to do with my days? Divorce has forced me to step up as a mother. I have no other choice.”
“I remember them pushing on my stomach trying to get it out and seeing the fear in my doctors’ faces. ’Kiera, we are going to have to take you right into surgery.’ I couldn’t believe it. Was it something I did? Where is everyone talking about the complications that can go wrong? I try and remember that having two healthy, fed kids is all that matters.”
“’Oh man, is she okay?’ I’m really not. ‘Will my kids be without a mom? I’m not ready to go! I want to be here!’ I found out my cancer was Stage 4. I’m only 33 years old. I’ve never been so angry. You feel like the curtains are closing, and this is it.”
“You married her when I was 3. I wasn’t at your wedding. I was maliciously sent to Chicago by my mother, just to get back at you. Remember that time you came to my Grandma’s and literally kidnapped me? Dragging me down the hill, kicking and screaming, you trying to hush me? I was 4. This is one of my earliest memories. Tragic. My kids don’t know you. But that seems to be a pattern in this family.”
“We both wanted to be moms. Forever. Ever since we can remember. We dated many boys, men, and a few gentlemen. Unfortunately, none of those relationships turned into our fairy tale. One day, we hope to get married and have a spouse, but we couldn’t give up on children if that man never came around. We had to do this together.”
“I really loved him, so I was caught off guard by my own response to him ending our romantic relationship. ‘Wait, shouldn’t I be sad? Shouldn’t I be crying or something?’ My dating self was cool, sexy, and mysterious. I knew how to seduce and intrigue men. I played the game well.”
“He said his old parents wouldn’t feed him due to being passed out. All their money was spent on cigarettes and other ‘fun things.’ At age 6, he would find change in their van, buy Ramen packets at the store down the street, and make dinner for himself and his brothers (ages 2 and 4 months). He didn’t know how to boil water, so he had to eat it raw. ‘I’m not sad I’m not with my old family anymore, but sometimes I like to remember how strong I had to be.'”
