“I see you: It’s early morning. Your hands grip the edge of your kitchen sink; head slumped as the last few peaceful moments of the morning diminish to dust in the rays through the window. You grasp for air in your lungs. Razor waves of all the anxiety in your life grate against your throat with each breath you take. I know you’re tired.”
“I texted my son and asked, ‘Are you ok?’ Right at that moment, my husband said, ‘Get home now, Cody is bleeding. He is hurt bad.’ The pistol was put way up high in a cabinet. He must’ve been trying to hurry and the gun fell. The investigator said the only explanation he could give us was it was God’s plan.”
“My great grandmother had 9 children. My great grandfather had spent time in prison for bootlegging, and drank heavily. How she was able to keep it together with 9 kids, no money and an alcoholic husband and stay sane is completely beyond me. My grandmother then made something of herself after losing her husband. She was determined. She was beautiful but tough, sometimes just downright mean, but she was who she was and if someone did not like it then, ‘they can leave.'”
“The first day he came home, we got pregnant. We’d been apart for 3 months straight – can you really blame us? The sun was just coming up. We were packing our car for the airport to say our goodbyes. I woke up feeling nauseous, so I took a pregnancy test. I immediately felt lightheaded and fell on my cold bathroom floor, bawling. Hayden sat next to me, wrapping his arms around me. ‘What do you want to do? It’s going to be okay.’ Before I knew it, Hayden was gone and I was on my way back home, alone.”
“I felt as if every person in the room was judging me for eating. ‘She carries snacks in her bag? No wonder she’s fat.’ Why did I feel like this for simply trying to provide myself with nourishment? I just wanted to be pretty. Skinny. There were horror stories of doctors being prejudiced to mothers for being bigger, calling them fat like it was nothing. I was horrified. The moment I held my son for the first time, I realized how truly amazing my body was, even though I was plus-size. I did that!”
“When I was 9 months pregnant, my husband was in a horrible car accident. I learned he’d been to a strip club and cheated on me that night. ‘He loves me enough to change.’ I wanted to be a ‘whole’ family. He was taking my car keys, my money, making sure he knew where I was. My son’s needs with his autism were increasing so we moved to Arizona to get him more help. This wasn’t about bettering our life at all. This was all just a master plan of isolating me. I finally knew I was done.”
“The summer after I got clean, I was at an amusement park with friends. I recall waiting in line for rides and pleading with God, ‘Please, please let me fit.’ I even told the attendant, ‘You can push as hard as you can, I promise you won’t hurt me.’ As 3 people pushed down on the lap bar, I remember tears welling up in my eyes. I turned to my then boyfriend and said, ‘I need help. I’m going to eat myself to death.’ The straps didn’t fit. I couldn’t fit into a single ride.”
“When you get the diagnosis. When the relationship completely falls apart. When mental illness becomes a real thing, not just something you hear about. When the company downsizes. When that person who was supposed to be there, isn’t. As you dig yourself out of the rubble, look back with lessons learned. Sometimes it takes the worst things to wake us up to the best things.”
“I lived for the thrill of being a sneak. I thought I was doing a good job hiding my secret, but I wasn’t. I was in a toxic relationship with a drug dealer and I honestly didn’t want to live anymore. I was so ashamed. One night I went to church with a few shots in me, but I left midway through worship because I couldn’t fake it. That was when the miracle finally had happened for me. I walked into my first meeting half-drunk from the warm bottle of wine under my driver’s seat in my car, and I asked for help.”
“Maybe you never lost that 15 pounds, or paid off that credit card debt. You never got that dream job or organized your linen closet. Or your life. But if you’ve accomplished nothing more than living 365 days this year, that’s okay. Completely okay.”
