29.

 

My older patients call me melodramatic for mourning the final outpost of my twenties, and I guess they're right. It's really nothing to mourn, not in the grand scheme of life. 

29 years is not a long time to live.

But still, the saying that youth is wasted on the young is true, and even at the young age of 29, I can't help but reflect on the years I wasted not for what I haven't accomplished, but rather for how much I underestimated how quickly they would pass. 

It's a funny thing to go from always being the youngest in the room, to slowly aging and becoming "that" adult. The slightly too-worn out, stressed one, who has seen a thing or two and occasionally mutters little cryptic, vaguely jaded words of advice. Trust me, I've learned the hard way, but now I'll actually have been around long enough to mean it, because young or no, I really have seen a thing or two. 

I'm old enough now to also temper the chips on my shoulder. The price you pay for surviving hardship is that childlike, carefree sort of innocence, and the prize you win is strength and fortitude, if you let it be so. But still, try as you might you'll feel a little jaded, hearing people say, look how much you've overcome while you feel like those too-hard edges and the sensation of keeping your back to a door that's about to fall open with life stuff while you desperately try to keep it pushed shut to hold it all together is too hard a price to pay sometimes. 

But I ramble a little bit. Surveying my life, I'm actually quite pleased. I feel like I've tempered many of my experiences into meaningful stories, and my advocacy efforts have landed me a couple of news stories and articles, some small time fame. I feel more plugged into the human experience, able to better listen with compassion and manage my emotional edges in a more productive manner. Financially stable, good job, a home, a marriage, even. This is a beautiful life I've had the pleasure of creating in my late 20's, and at least, I feel I've shaped the life I wish I'd had in my early 20's. I'm grateful for my hardships, too. How much it's given me to think about, and how much it's inspired me to be candid and share my stories for catharsis and perhaps, as a bright side, to be a little beacon of hope to someone out there. 

If I could go back and tell myself things at 21, or at 26, I'd whisper, don't you know? It's actually all going to turn out good. Really, really good. Hang in there. And I probably wouldn't believe it, but it would wriggle in the back of my mind a little bit, at least, and I'd think of it throughout the years. 

There is, all in all, plenty to reflect on in this beautiful year of my life - my engagement, the pain of losing my beloved childhood cat and truly, my best animal friend - our beautiful trip to Scotland and our elopement. Sifting through all of this, in honor of my birthday, I'll share a little story that truly represents the metamorphosis my life has endured in the last 2-3 years. How it's become full circle: balance restored, for what it feels at last, in many tangible and intangible ways.

It started this April, when I went to church with an old friend of mine named Hannah. We took a walk after the sermon, strolling the shaded sidewalks of Oakhurst, aptly named for all of the trees, sipping iced tea as we walked, Hannah eating a bag of coffee store trail mix. Hannah was telling me about her small group.

Have you met this person? She asked as she described her. I told her no, but I had a feeling that I knew who it was. My friends had talked, over the years. Even my mom had. It's the funniest thing, Hannah went on. She told me about how this girl had had a really hard time in her relationship in the last year. Then finally, a few months ago, she had decided to exit the relationship. Hannah recounts feeling so elated for her, at her growth and her strength - at making the right choice. 

So I asked her who she was in a relationship with, Hannah told me. 

It was my ex husband. 

I became really quiet.

Are you okay? Hannah asked. I nodded my head. "I am..." I said. "I'm glad you told me. It's just hard. I really thought he would change." 

I went home to get ready for my gig and I texted my exes ex-fiancée, who had ended up messaging me back when I first started writing about what happened, and thus began several conversations on and off throughout the year after everything in 2020. I had found so much comfort in hearing her stories. They made me feel sane - like I hadn't made everything that had happened all up. 

I feel really sad, and weird, I told her. I hate hearing about someone else he's done this to. I hate hearing about how he hasn't changed. 

Still, for my wistful sadness I laughed at the sheer chance of it - that somehow all of our paths had started to cross in this strange way. Her and I sharing stories of the person we thought we knew. My friend happening to cross paths with my exes ex-girlfriend. For being such a big city, Atlanta is small, in some ways.

It was about 2 months later when I got the message at work.

She messaged me and said, I think we dated the same person. I was wondering if you'd maybe like to talk. My heart raced. I never expected her to reach out to me. If anything, these people are the kind of people you never get along with. But I have always loved candidness, deep conversations full of meaning, same as I've never really known how to do small talk all too well when I've met a stranger. I'd much rather jump into the serious things, and I've never shied away from telling a story. So I messaged back. Yes, I was married to them for 4 years. And yes, I'd be open to talking.

I was so nervous having coffee a few days later I embarrassingly had to take one of my leftover 2020 Klonopin, even though I didn't like how tired they made me. We had a lot of commonalities. We both embroidered. We both liked poetry. Homeschooled. Quite enjoyed Grimes, even post Elon Musk. We both wrote. It felt incredibly special, to be able to meet this person. It felt incredibly special to be able to share our experiences. She told me about how she'd read my blog. How she hadn't believed it at first. But then the same things started happening to her, and she started to believe it was true. The amount of stories we shared were staggering, each one helping me realize more and more what an empowering thing exiting this relationship was. It helped me recognize the patterns I had missed, how they simply repeated themselves, over and over. 

Listen - although it can be hard to talk about, I think this is an important thing to say. For all of your healing, there are still going to be things you might have still wished you could change. There will still be things you might question. And it can be hard to watch someone move on and wonder, what if there was just something wrong with me? I have lumped a lot of blame on myself over the years. Despite telling myself it wasn’t true, I have hurt in having been told that I caused someone’s addiction. I have hurt in being told I made it all up. You’re a liar. Just a negative liar. I knew it wasn’t true. I never shared my story to gain power over someone, but rather, to reclaim my own. But still, those words had an impact. I think I settled on just realizing there were two flawed individuals. But after hearing how so much of the same blame and deflection happened to someone after me - after hearing about how the tall tales of recovery that would happen in spite of me never came to fruition once it was all said and done - well, I started to feel a shift.

Yes, I wish I had changed things sooner. I am sad I didn’t reclaim my life years prior. I am sad that I allowed myself to be used and lied to, as two other people were. But striking up this strange and unusual friendship with this person helped free me from so many old thoughts and helped me finally be proud of how strong I was to have come out of this on the other side and thrived. It helped me to further see the past with greater clarity for what it was: I was caught in the sad spiral of someone with an addiction who would do anything to lay the blame on anyone but themselves. And while I will never change their narrative, I feel powerful in knowing that my lack of silence has helped me find peace and helped someone else to find peace, too. I will never be a woman silenced. I have never regretted sharing my story, and you shouldn’t, either.

The catharsis of knowing this person has been life changing, and they've become a friend I never thought I'd have. It has felt like redemption, honestly. I had made my peace long ago. I had moved on into the most profoundly wonderful relationship I'd ever known. But embarking on this friendship was and has been power. It's been a thing of beauty. Women looking out for each other. We have all been - all three of us - through not only hardship, but a shared hardship, and we'd come out of the other side of it. We'd helped each other process the difficult things. We'd laughed over each other’s stories. We'd created a Spotify playlist. I have been so grateful. Yes, that chapter where that relationship held power over me has closed in my life - the dust has settled, the book set back on the shelf. But I am reminded that words are power. What we say carries weight. 

It has the ability to change and shift your life. It did for me, for the better. And if you’re looking for that sign to share your tough story, maybe this is the sign that you needed. For some of us, your story is just the push we needed. To get there or keep going. When I wrote my story those two and a half years ago, I knew people would read it simply because, yes, hardship is an interesting thing to read about. But I never imagined who would read my blog, or what it could do. I didn’t think I would ever see the full impact of sharing my story the way that I did. The validation of our shared experiences gives us strength. Let us all strive to make ourselves more vulnerable.