“Years ago, I was married to a different man who cared more about material possessions than his family. We had a big house with an incredible view, nice vehicles, a boat in the driveway. We were, in fact, the Joneses. But inside the front door, life was filled with drug abuse, infidelity, and violence. Two children who never saw their father, or only saw him screaming at their mother. From the outside, we were the envy of neighbors and friends. Inside, it was a nightmare.”
“Today I got breastfeeding support in the most unlikely of places.”
“For some reason, I wanted to be a young mom–fit, fashionable, and in the prime of life. I was doing all the pregnancy math. If we get pregnant at this time and it takes nine months to cook, then we’d have the baby at this perfect time. After several months of trying, I started to get a little worried.”
“We didn’t know when we went to bed, and you told us you loved us, it would be the last time we saw you alive. You didn’t know either. You only wanted care from the VA. Did you know the priority mail envelope that contained your hearing appointment was finally delivered to me, 4 months after you died? Yeah, you can’t make this up. We applied because of your pain.”
“‘How much longer are you willing to live like this?’ My mind screamed. This CHRISTIAN counselor was introducing the option of me leaving my husband. ‘He is a narcissist. This won’t stop.’ He was driving extremely fast and irresponsibly down the highway. I was crying, begging him to stop. Then he’d take pride in being the one to ‘comfort’ me. I didn’t believe in divorce. What were my options? Lifelong suffering? It dawned on me – I was being treated horribly. I deserved so much better.”
“No one can see if I’m on the phone, cooking, sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner. Some days I’m only a pair of hands, nothing more! ‘Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?’ I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ A satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the Disney Channel?’ I’m the invisible mom.”
“This is your reality. Your mother is more like a long distant cousin. Your friends bond with their moms over ‘The Bachelor.’ They could talk for hours about decorating the same way Joanna Gaines does. But you can’t do that. Your mom barely has a maternal bone in her body. She dropped you off at college and barely hugged you goodbye, thankful you were finally out of her house.”
“I definitely don’t want to hang out with the friend who tells me my husband walked about because there was obviously something wrong with me. My best friend, my soul sister, told me ‘I can’t even keep my life together’ because I was not able to keep my marriage together. Ouch.”
“In all my years of attending socials and dinners, I always remember that when the main course was being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, ‘Keep your fork.’ It was my favorite part because I knew something better was coming, like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie. The next time you reach down for your fork let it remind you, the best is yet to come.”
“I blacked out, refusing to leave the shop. My husband had to carry me out. I woke up to use the bathroom the next day, but I didn’t make it. I fainted. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. I panicked. ‘I can’t see!’ My temperature was dropping. He called an ambulance. My parents had just brought our kids home and here I was, being taken out on a stretcher. I could not make my children witness such a horror. I HAD TO STOP.”
