I LOVE this picture of us. In the chaos of life, neither of our mental health's were good, when we were both neglecting ourselves and the relationship... it was a kiss to anchor ourselves with. In that garage, that was such a symbol of how fucked our lives had become. It still took 5 years for us to dig ourselves out and to prioritize ourselves and each other.
I look back on this and realize how far we've come. And how proud I am of both of us. For a while there in 2020, 2021, I didn't know if there was going to be an "us". My husband and I have been to hell and back. In 2008, his family tried to keep us from getting married. In 2009, he had a virus that attacked his heart and almost killed him. The day we moved into our house he got sick and all I could think was that I tried to have too much. I tried to have the happily ever after. That I should have been content with just getting married and not trying to buy the house too. After a week in ICU, he was given back to me. And then in the following year, I almost lost him to mental health struggles and a vast depression that threatened to consume us both. Amidst that backdrop, we started to try to have our second child. In 2010, I suffered my first miscarriage early in the pregnancy. In 2011, I was pregnant again and this time at 27 weeks we had a stillborn. In 2012, another miscarriage and in 2013 yet another. By 2014, my husband and his family were deep into the plans to open the first in a chain of franchise restaurants. In 2015 we gave birth to my little girl. By 2017 the nature of my job had changed and I was traveling 70% of the time. My husband while trying to manage and run his restaurant was also the primary care provider. My daughter learned to talk and crawl and walk while I was away working. By 2019, my in-laws were heading for divorce, and the cracks had really started to show in my husband's mental health and the restaurants. In 2020 they made the decision to close the restaurants and my husband's world spiraled into a depression with significant physical health issues that would last almost 2 years and nearly take his life. In 2021 I got fired from a job I had for 10 years because I was trying to be everything to everybody in the midst of a pandemic when both my kids, now a sophomore in high school and just starting kindergarten were home everyday. And they couldn't understand why I was not able to be responsible for twice the amount of work that everyone else on my team had. That happened the day of the insurrection.
And over the course of that year, we came to terms with the fact that we were now drowning, neither one of us were working, and my family and my husbands had all but stopped talking to us. Mine because they didn't want me to stick by my husband and thought I was weak for staying... My husband's because we didn't look and act the right way. My father-in-law was the sole exception to all of that and for that I will always be eternally grateful.
So I began being an independent consultant which brought in money but not nearly enough to pay the bills. January 1st 2022 something shifted inside of me. And I took a good long hard look at who I was, who we were together and what we were slowly becoming. And I did not like what was staring back at us. And so we began the long very difficult slog out of the muck. I worked very hard to forgive myself and to forgive those around me. To hold myself accountable for the failings and shit that I had messed up as a mother, as a wife, as a person...and and I worked really hard to forgive myself and to learn how to love myself again. Meanwhile my husband was doing the same thing on his end.
Now it's 2023, I live in an amazing place. It's far from perfect. But my future looks and feels brighter than it has ever before. My life looks radically different than I thought it was going to look when I took that picture in the garage, he and I trying not to forget who we were as a couple with that kiss. I have let go of so many of the damaging expectations of myself of life and of my husband.
I don't know if this story helps somebody else. I don't know if it's just to provide a record of how far I've come so I have something to read again when I need a pick me up. But I do know after 18 years with my husband that I can count on him to have my back, he can count on me to always have his, I know what real loyalty looks like. And I will always choose happiness and us, and I will never again do something because that's the way it's supposed to be done.... Sometimes this path can be lonely. He and I got a lot of heat for moving here. A lot of judgment and a lot of heat. People said some really ugly things. But I needed to save myself and my family. Ryan and I were literally dying in California. Dying a slow death of a thousand paper cuts. And I knew there had to be more to life than just surviving. And for a long time that's all we were doing. I'm not going to apologize for thriving now.
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