A Candid Reflection on the Last 5 Years.

In two weeks, one year will have passed since the day my marriage ended. How long ago that seemed, back before I knew the pain and the withdrawals I would go through, before I knew how much I would transform, before I knew that this year was not the eternity of lonely penitence I once thought lied in wait ahead of me. I have to be honest, part of me believed it was all just a test back then. If I did the right things, if I got counseling, wrote the letters, went to church, prayed enough...things could go back to the way they were, reconciliation would happen. I only thought this in the early days, to be clear. Looking back now, I believed this because my codependent brain couldn’t cope with the ending just yet. I needed some sort of reassurance, even just a false one, that things wouldn’t be the way they were. 

For the past year, I have tried to walk a fine line of being both open and being more reserved about what happened. I do believe in respecting other people’s privacy, but at the same time, I also have always believed that it’s important to shed light on your struggles, and on your truth, because it lends strength to others who perhaps have gone through the same thing. I have always tried to walk the route of being more open and candid with my life, even if it doesn’t always shed me in the most beautiful light. I’m a very flawed, divorced, chronically ill 27 year old who has struggled with depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and her share of familial issues for most of my life. I’m not merely a passerby in any of that. I’ve played an active role in the drivers seat, hurting people I love, being too rough on the edges and making mistakes along the way. But I do believe that learning from it (and by extension, processing it through writing and candidness) is helping me continue to grow into the woman I am meant to become. 

So I wanted to talk to you tonight about addiction, about alcohol, because I have spent a very long, long time thinking about it. Years, actually. It has played a center part in my life since 2016, two weeks after I walked down the aisle, when I learned I was married to someone who struggled with this. The paramedics called me one Friday while I was interning at the hospital, still a student. 

“Lacy Mason?” They asked. I answered yes. “We found your husband on the side of the road. He’s injured, and we believe he’s been drinking.”

I felt like a train had hit me, but the most overwhelming feeling was one of confusion. What? How? Why? I had known literally nothing about this until the moment they called. Had I been that much of a fool that I really hadn’t known? Had other people known and not told me? Had I really missed all of the signs? 

I was angry, too. Selfishly, I was. Anger is a first instinct. A human one. And often the thing we feel before we start to take a step back and process things. I missed my best friend’s wedding rehearsal dinner that night as I picked him up from the hospital and let him sleep it off. I lied to everyone and said it was a biking incident, full of shame and denial. Even my clinic instructor who I frantically explained a fake situation to so I could leave and get him. My heart hurt. My head hurt. I felt like I was in a dream.

I think the hardest thing was hardly being able to talk about it. How do you have a conversation with someone who barely even remembers what happened? How do you tell your friends who just helped you live your “happily ever after” mere weeks ago that this has happened? I couldn’t begin to figure out how to start. So I didn’t. 

It was not an isolated incident. Not that summer, not that year. Sometimes months would go in between, sometimes shorter, other times longer. I felt worried when I was gone, worried what I could come back to, worried about the bottles in the kitchen I had yet to get rid of because I didn’t fully understand the gravity of depth of what was happening. I wondered if I had done something wrong. I wondered if I had caused this. 

At 22, mostly I was just confused. I was hurt. I hadn’t seen any behavior like this before, and it seemed to start without warning. Truly, it just began on a day that seemed exactly like every other day. 

I know now after many years that addiction is a difficult thing. It’s not a linear healing process, and that’s something I struggled a great deal with, as I believe I unfairly expected that for a long time. I think as someone who personally has never struggled with this particular battle in life, my lack of experience didn’t equip me to provide the kind of emotional support necessary to either let myself thrive instead of just survive, or help the person struggling through it properly. Nor to recognize the right steps to take to get either of us through it. 

While I recoiled in anger and hurt, I should have extended an olive branch and built a community. I should have set structure and accountability. I should have pushed the 12 steps more. I did try to do my part. I didn’t mention it to friends. He wanted to keep it private. So I did. And I did do everything I could do establish that protective wall of privacy around us, even at the expense of my own well being. Even when I got questions from friends. Where did the entire bottle of whiskey go from the pantry of my friends house that weekend we stayed? As I pulled more into myself, I clung to old bad habits. I didn’t give myself enough insulin. I lost weight. It was to give myself a sense of control, but it was a silent cry for help, too. And when I didn’t think I could take it anymore, I’d try to walk away, and then I’d inevitably return to the cycle, unable to face my fears of loneliness and loss, digging a deeper and deeper well of hurt into not just myself, but both of us. The “flight to health” - the act to push away any of the deeper, residual hurt in order to soothe the bad feelings and return things to normal in the face of a blowup - plagued me for years, as I was unable to break out of my own toxic cycle I created. I became consumed with my own hurt and emotions over everything, demanding more, turning to things I shouldn’t have, and shutting myself off. I built my own walls. And it stunted my own ability to heal, let alone my ability to help support the person I was with. I wish I hadn’t done all of this, but that’s the thing about growth - it often takes the “what not to do” to learn the “what to do.” (If that’s not the case for you, consider me jealous of you.) In the end, all of this left two people unable to move forward and heal. I was angry about the past, my illusions of happiness shattered, and I became a harsh critic because of it. People rarely respond well to this. 

At the same time, I was just young. I went back and forth between feeling I was too harsh and too soft. I have an innate desire to please, and a hard time saying no and telling hard truths. Lacking healthcare or feeling the strain of a single income for a long time, it was hard to prioritize getting the mental help needed for either of us, believing that with enough hard work this could be handled without professional help. When I was pressed to bend the rules, to “allow” a drink, I eventually caved in, on multiple occasions that led to bad outcomes later on. I brought the occasional bottle of wine home. I followed all the wrong steps. 

When I got sad, I tended to pull deeper into myself, instead of reaching out. I think I could have avoided a lot of pitfalls had I talked to someone with similar experience, perhaps, or just reached out to a trusted adviser or confidante more. But I felt shame, and felt I’d betray trust it I did. I wanted very much to preserve the illusion that everything was fine on the outside. 

It was hard processing a lot of this hurt alone, because there were so many things that happened that only I remembered or witnessed. It was hard when those happened and they made you more paranoid: every little thing became more noticeable. The smell of their breath or skin. The cups hidden behind the nightstand. How full was that bottle the night before? A “good night out” put me on edge, just waiting for the other shoe to fall. 

I also think one of the harder things when things finally ended was having it thrown back to me. There was the, “I’ll admit I had a bit of a drinking problem... then,” and the “I struggled so much because you didn’t join Alanon to properly support me.” I still don’t understand how it all started. My once dear friends who told me I was lying and manipulative to ever accuse the person I’d lived with for 5 years of having a problem hurt very deeply. There were the incidents revealed to me even after, that I hadn’t known about. It made me question several years of my life: what version of reality I could actually trust. 

And all of it is just water under the bridge now. But I’ll admit it hurt for a long time, and even when I talk about it to my counselor... I’m shocked at what an emotional reaction it evokes from me. The tiny shakes, the quiver of my voice as I told back tears. The ache in my throat. I wanted to sob. I held it all for a long time. The times I felt alone, the guilt I carried for all I thought I could have done better. And I’ve spent a year letting it go. It feels good, to let the universe play its part now as I have set this part of my life free. I learned, I grew, I changed over the years. I hurt. But I was who I needed to be then, and that helped me become the person I need to be now. It takes strength to move past your mistakes and let them refine you.

I want to say this: you might think you can’t, but you are strong. Whatever you choose, whatever you are facing, you are strong. Looking back on a year... it sits so well with my soul that everything happened as it should have. Could it have been executed better? Yes. But it took strength, nonetheless, to come out of this situation whole. Strength takes sifting through the oftentimes messy weakness to find what lies beneath. 

I want to tell you to trust your heart. I want to tell you that choosing to repeat cycles that only perpetuate your pain in an attempt to sacrifice for someone will inevitably come back to sabotage and ruin the original sacrifice. Because neither of you learn. Whatever that means to you, know that you cannot expect to heal without FULLY confronting pain and hurt. Not partially. Not just laying things aside and not processing how they’ve effected both parties for the sake of preserving the temporary peace. 

The good thing about setting something free is... you can hope for a happy ending from a distance, as though you are reading a fairytale. We should all want what is best for our fellow humans. 

You no longer play an active role, but there are little reminders and whisps of memories you’ll get every so often, and you’ll smile at them and think, “for all of this that happened, I was made better. They too, learned in ways that they needed to. For all of this that happened, I played my part in the universe’s grander scheme. It is no more, but it was good.” These thoughts will pass. The lessons have been learned, the story seen to conclusion. The final page of that chapter turnt. It is here that I wish for peace and goodness, it is in this space that I feel whole and complete: the work I did to heal has made me feel whole again, because I rebuilt myself from the ground up using what I learned. 

The journey, for all its pain and poignant beauty: it was good. 

The COVID Blues

Lately I’ve been down. I feel like I’ve been crumbling under the weight of this pandemic. And I feel guilty saying that, because things could be a lot worse. I have a job. I have healthcare. I have a roof over my head. The boxes of “survival” are all checked. 

I suppose this is indicative of an important distinction for all of us: that there is a great deal of difference between surviving, and thriving. This winter has been long and dark indeed: I have lost some of my favorite residents to Covid, seen others hospitalized, and am feeling the pressing burden of keeping patients, managing budget, and assuring residents of our safety protocols as a rehabilitation director, while brainstorming creative ways to build caseload. The stress gets to me.

In the springtime and the summer, my walks outside gave me life. Picnics in the sun, watching the geese by the pond. Riding my bike to the park and sitting for hours on a blanket outdoors, reading. I didn’t take for granted these moments, because they healed me. But I didn’t realize just how much I depended on them for my well-being. The cold, dark days make it hard to enjoy being outside. 

It is isolating, and I struggle with it. No one tells you about how isolating it feels after divorce. To have made a home with another human being and then learn to grow accustomed to living alone. Even if you are better off for it, the fact is, you will almost surely feel the absence of another human in your space more acutely, and there will be things, even little ones, that you miss, even if you don’t miss the person. I truly have had to work hard to navigate the transition, and doing it in a pandemic made it a great deal harder. Aside from a 5 month stretch between college and undergraduate school, I have never lived alone in my life. Everything I learned that was useful in my previous season of life, I have to unlearn to adapt to my current one. There is a peace about it: I enjoy the space I’ve created, and everything in its place just the way I wanted. I enjoy the too-few leisurely mornings or the quiet evenings with a glass of wine (not too much) and a book, or sitting listening to NPR. But there is an intense loneliness, too, that makes feeding into depression easy. One that might more easily be abated by groups, or church, or dinners with friends, or going out on a Friday - things that aren’t readily available in the current state of the world. 

Don’t get me wrong: I’m so happy with how my life is right now. I feel so blessed, I feel as though my life is just filled to the brim with goodness and abundance, I have so much to live and be happy for. I am truly grateful and satisfied. But in spite of all that, I do still have ups and downs, and I’m sure I’m accurate in saying that many of us are feeling the strain of COVID right now.

I am prone to depression. I weaned myself off of antidepressants late last year. It was a difficult process. I am glad that I went on them last year. I had a difficult time pulling myself out of bed most mornings. It strongly interfered with work and I couldn’t eat. Going off of them was painful. My moods didn’t always feel like my own. I feel much better now. But some days or nights I’m just... down. And it’s hard to get back up again. It’s hard to know if I made the right choice choosing to go without them, but I made the choice I thought was right for me at the time, so I’m comfortable with that. Artists and highly emotional people often struggle with the darker end of the emotional spectrum that can manifest as depression. Where there is intense joy and feeling, is sadness, too. The piper has to be paid, at least so I see it. I can write some beautiful words and feel beautiful things and be moved by the human experience in ways that I feel many of my fellow humans cannot. But so too can I be moved by sadness and negative feelings, compounded by childhood pain, codependency, and a chronic illness. So this s is not to say that depression can’t also be a clinical thing, or simply something that anyone can experience based on circumstances in their lives or their processing. Because that is the case, too. Since I was a child, I was a writer and often a loner, and as a teenager, I was aware of these ups and downs, although I didn’t have a word for them. As an adult, I am glad that I largely know how to manage it. I’m good at coping. I’m good at staying busy. The repetitive and peaceful routine of cleaning. A show I enjoy. Checking on my plants. Yoga. All of these things help. 

But the times they don’t, sometimes, I just get to be sad, and I have to let that process happen, and try again tomorrow. I enjoy the peacefulness this stage of my life has brought. I’m grateful for the freedom. I’m grateful for how much less stressed I am. But I’m also sad being alone, sometimes, because I miss the space around me being filled. I accept that. Perhaps it is simply laziness: I enjoyed the space filled around me because it didn’t hold me accountable for looking inside of myself for internal gratification or fullness. Perhaps it is just simply human. 

Covid feels like a little too much today. I want to be around people. I want the “easy” route of companionship - sitting in a coffee shop, or swing dancing, the casual encounters with familiar strangers that make me feel like a part of something. I miss casual strangers, faces, and social outings. I think one day I’ll look back and I’ll feel glad that this time exposed weak points of mine and crutches I relied on to supplement my own internal sense of happiness. 

But I’ll also rejoice and appreciate every normal moment, once those days come again. 

Otherness.

Carving a path for myself has always been hard. In truth, I’ve always felt like an outsider. Even long before I had an invisible illness that made me feel as though I lived my life inside of a glass box.

I was acutely aware of my own “otherness” even as a child. I was a puzzle piece that never seemed to fit quite right. I would look at myself in the mirror as I grew up, studying the different angles of myself, hoping to glean more insight into who I was. Practicing conversations I imagined I might have with other people. Letting my mind wander with fantasy and whimsy, and even more dangerous - idealism I dared to hope upon. I learned to settle that quickly, my own personal motto becoming, “taper your expectations.” It is too easy to become disappointed as an idealist. We oftentimes learn this the hard way. 

I had an active imagination and a love for writing and art from a young age, but an awful awkwardness around people. Am I the only one who could never even figure out something so simple as what to do with my hands when I talked to people? 

The words of a girl I used to spend time with when I was 8 still ring in my ears, even to this day, on the last phone call we had: 

“Lacy, when we hang out, things are...different. Really different.” 

It took me time, but I realized a large part of my feeling like an outsider was born from my early struggles with anxiety and depression. As many of us artists, feelers, and creators find ourselves struggling with. I think this can be complicated because we both mourn and delight in the things that set us apart. We push ourselves into art to find our great belonging, as our way to try to connect with a world that inherently tells us that our way is the one that doesn’t quite fit. There is a freedom in stopping to say, “Maybe it’s not me that is wrong. Maybe it’s the world. Maybe the reason I feel so different is because I’ve been told that “right” is only one thing. Maybe I don’t have to be like that after all. Maybe I’m like this because I like it here.”

So as I grew older, I learned to step into this otherness more comfortably. To surround myself with people who could see me, and whom I could see. It is no wonder that I often felt drawn to others on the fringe - outsiders, or those on the border, if you will, with whom we all shared a little of this “otherness”, too. Though I tried and tried when I was younger, I came to see that I couldn’t necessarily change myself to be the free-flowing, easygoing person who always fit in. Resilience borne from hardship is a badge most individuals do not want to wear, but is rather forced upon you. Living in a world of lows and highs and oftentimes struggling to find the right balance of in between is difficult, but I learned that it’s okay to embrace this for what it is and seek out balance I n my own way. To listen to my inner self. To change myself to conform to my conditioned version of “right” that the world taught me - I did learn that this was the harder and, nay, more impossible task. I instead had to find my own place. And realize that was okay, even if it meant occasionally feeling alone in a crowded room. 

There are many things that I have learned about myself in the 27 years I have spent alive. 

I know that in order to carve my happiness, I must be a creator. 

I must strive to be true to myself. 

I must feel that I am serving in what I do. 

I must try harder every day to make my heart soft, even if I did not innately learn this. 

I must be okay with my good days and bad days, and be willing to take the steps I need to to listen to what my body and mind is telling me that I need. 

I must be willing to put in the work to be my best self. It is not just steps to an end: it is a life long journey. 

As I get older, I realize perhaps that this sense of otherness is not just me. Perhaps we all feel it. Perhaps we all feel that we live on an island, where we are, at the start, innately lonely. And perhaps we all simply act on this in a different way. Some might find it easy to leave. Some might be content with staying. Many might find that right amount of in between, effortlessly, even. Some might hover in that in between, ever so unsure of how to end up in the right place, afraid of swimming out too deep, unable to get back if we go too far, unable to leave if we never dare to go far enough. 

For me? The island is both hard and too easy to live on. For creatures who hate loneliness, there is a sort of draw to it, too. Like a siren’s song. Living in our own world is what sets us apart. Things feel right, there. The rest of the world is what seems strange to us, not the other way around. 

The longer we stay there, the more that the walls that once held us in seem comforting. I want to remember what these times are like, too. But I don’t want to be here forever. We want to be validated too, you see. We want to find our belonging. Striking the right balance is learning to find your belonging without giving up your true self.

My otherness is something I stride to bridge the gap on, between being true to myself and finding my best belonging. It also beckons. “Do you know what you are here for?” It asks. I think I’d like to find out. I say that I think because that journey can be painful.

Part of my sense of otherness, yes, has been my own personal experiences with pain and my reaction to them. A large part of it I have also, importantly, learned to identify in the last year as a single word: 

Codependency. 

My journey out of codependency has not been easy. It has been a mine pit that I have tried to gnash and claw myself out of, all while the voices of codependency whisper to me not to change. I grow defensive. I do not want to change what has been comfortable for 27 years. So I regularly struggle daily with the same self doubts that always plagued me, only this time, the scene is simply set differently. It is hard to listen to my self doubt so frequently, and in some ways, be helpless to do a thing about it. My need to tether myself to someone or something in order to find deeper meaning is a painful artifact of my childhood, a wound that was left in me by a parent who loved me, but could not allow their own love to flow freely to me. 

Codependency is a lonely place. It is cold, hollow, endless. Because there exists inside of you a hole so deep, that no one thing can ever fill it. Your heart is insatiable. And it tricks you, the clever thing. It takes the things that bring you joy and it morphs them into things that are no longer enough. They are poisoned in your mind, as your mind tells you to loathe them because they are not enough to fix you. Try as they could, they could never be enough. 

That sounds awful, you think. 

It is. It can be. Because it isn’t reality. No one bring can be everything. No one person can be everything. But only you can tell yourself, that.

Recovery is something I’ve learned is not an end state, but rather a practice. Daily I must remind myself. 

“It is enough.” 

“Treasure your abundance.”

“Stop and appreciate.”

“Only you can truly be in charge of your happiness.”

It is important to differentiate this from settling. You have every ability and the tools to be happy, with codependency. But you have to check yourself. Because you are going to question yourself. Constantly. “Do I have enough?”

And you must remember to pause and tell yourself, “Yes, I do.”

I used to think that happiness was a career. So I graduated with a doctorate at 23. And still, I felt like a failure. Still, I felt unsatisfied. An imposter that didn’t belong, but also should have strived for more, pouring and pouring myself into work I found identity in, all while feeling more and more empty, depleted, and lost. 

I used to think that happiness was a man. I painted many to be what I wanted. A white knight. I faulted them for not living up to my impossible standards. It also made me stay in situations when I shouldn’t have. I knew, mere months after my marriage that it was not right for me. Deep inside: I knew. We were not helping each other become our truest selves. I think we were even hastening ourselves further away from who we should have been. My duty bound me there. It also caused me to fester, to simmer, in my anger. Anger that said more about me than about him, even if his addiction was an exacerbation to my negative emotions. The more I simmered, the more I tried to control. Control is not love. Trust is. An absence of trust became centerpoint to years of unhealthy behavior, with bandages placed over rough points to smooth them over, without exposing the deeper wounds to allow them to heal. It is no wonder that my ex-husband eventually left me. I was the one that threw the door open, of course. He simply shut it behind him. I wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t, either. I hated his addiction, but it also made me angry at myself. Because I continued to let myself remain in a situation that violated my boundaries. And he did not feel like he was in a safe place to heal and re-establish his own boundaries, either. Will he ever find healing and recovery? I certainly hope so. But the narrative of my own life no longer depends on what he comes to be. Now, I am learning to confront my sadness, my anger, and my codependency in the narrative of what it says about me: not, “I am feeling all of this because of another person.” I am not. That is merely a variable. My feelings indicate that I still have much work left to do, in my own heart and mind. 

I am finally living in a narrative that is right for me. When I look into the eyes of the man I truly believe has been made for me, I see two people that compliment the other. We watch each other’s blind spots. Neither of us are people who can be controlled. It is hard, too. We disagree often, and butt heads. He pushes me, and I push him. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I am becoming more and more the person that is my true self, because of him. But. It is important still to note that not even my soulmate can fill the emptiness inside of me. Only I can. From a heart that I fill with the grace to give what I might not have ever had. From one that learns to be softer side by side with its developed fortitude. I must remind myself that I am not left wanting more because someone else failed. I am left wanting more because my codependent brain keeps trying to tell me that nothing can ever be enough. And that is not true. So I learn to hold him a little tighter, to treasure every moment with him, but also to learn to be comfortable in my own space. To remember that being alone isn’t always loneliness. It’s also quiet self reflection, and honoring myself. It has its place. Him needing space is not a rejection of me. It is him respecting his boundaries. It is me respecting his. We are a painting made of different colors, making one thing, but each comprised of our different selves. He helps me to get outside of my head when I get into that codependent, depressive, and negative cycle - and I am learning to get better at letting him. It’s an utterly transforming process. As a slow learner, it’s hard. But I am filled with the comfort of knowing that at last: this is where I’m supposed to be. Learning side by side, with him, who I am, who he is, and who we are.  

“What do you want, Lacy?” I want to be happy, of course, I would answer back. But I also have to be honest with myself. If happiness was staring me in the face, would I even know what it looked like? It is hard to accept that happiness is a transient thing. It is not a fixed state. It is an ebb and flow, a journey that I do not simply work towards, but one that I live daily. I learn a little more each moment at a time. 

I hope that we all dare to continue down the River that is the ebb and flow of happiness, that we have the strength to break our cycles, carve our own path, and that we find the self realization and appreciate within in order to celebrate our otherness. We are not all so different, but rather alike, I think. Other or not, we are boundless, capable, free, unable to be labeled. And we are constantly learning what that means. May we never stop. 

Hatsuyume.

Hatsuyume, in Japanese culture, is the first dream of the new year. Traditionally, it is thought that the contents of the dream with foretell the luck of the dreamer in the ensuing year.

On the night of new years this past year, I dreamed I was at a grocery store. I looked up from checking out, and Jordan was standing at the door. We locked eyes. I hadn't seen him or talked to him in years. We said nothing. My dream ended.

I had gone to sleep excited to have my first dream, particularly because of an upcoming trip to Japan planned for that May. You can imagine how perplexed I was that my hatsuyume was a dream about someone who I hadn't spoken with in so long. 

What is perhaps even stranger, is the fact that this dream did, indeed, foretell my year, in the truest way possible. 

This year deserves a summary if any ever did. While it is a marker for the world's history books: it also marks a particularly large and momentous chapter in my own book. I remember the 31st of December, 2019 and how jubilant I felt: I, like so many others, dressed in my best interpretation of the '20's and celebrated a year that I couldn't have yet realized would completely strip me of my then-current self. I had a lot to look forward to: a 3-week trip to Japan, my new job, weddings, Dragon Con, and my then-husband applying to medical school, which would shape the future of our life: would it remain in Atlanta? Or somewhere far off? Part of me mourned the thought of leaving the first place I'd ever truly called my home. The other, couldn't quell an itch of desire for some other adventure in life, something to make me feel like I wasn't just stuck where I was at, which I suppose is common to your mid to late twenties when you're settled and in your career. The old familiar "what's next?" will always come creeping up to visit you and make you ponder where you are at.

I, like every one else, never pictured a pandemic affecting us. I read the news like everyone else. I looked on with concern at the headlines about the virus, but it was something far away that I never considered would affect me. We booked our tickets to Japan, figuring it would all blow over. Then the news many of us here dreaded: the first case in Georgia. It felt solemn. That far-off virus was here now, and I didn't know what it meant. But I quickly learned. $800 worth of gigs cancelled that second week in March. I thought that was bad. But then, they all cancelled. Every single one. My extra income was eliminated in almost 3 days' time. And then, it started happening at work. Patients called to cancel. They were too afraid to come in. There were no new evaluations. Things screeched to a halt, and somehow I had to figure out how to make it work. My hours were cut drastically. I was in charge of building a caseload, and I was new to my job, too: and I had 3 patients left. I was fairly powerless to change it. People were just scared. I drove to Newnan almost every day to help at another building, just to get hours. The coping mechanisms I would normally use to get by were gone. I couldn't spend time with friends. We had to cancel our Japan trip, finally. Weddings were postponed. Church no longer met in person. The gym was closed. The only thing that really kept me going were my daily walks on the beltline and freedom park trail, and even those threatened to close. I was so relieved that they didn't. 

I did worry about our income, but did my best to manage with virtual princess calls here and there. I invested a large portion of money when the stock market took a giant dip, and I stressed about it greatly... but thankfully it seemed to be the right call after several months, despite losing quite a bit of sleep over it. One good thing that came out of it all was that I finally understood how refreshing that having an entire weekend off was. I hadn't had any consecutive weekends of in years due to my tenure as a princess. I realized that much of my anxiety was due to chronic overworking. Truth be told, prior to the pandemic, my anxiety was getting overwhelming. On my lunch breaks, I would shut the door to the clinic and lay on my back on the mat, breathing, eyes closed, willing my anxiety to quell. I tried CBD. I tried lemon balm. It helped a little. But I was still so anxious. Taking the weekends off honestly got rid of a huge amount of my anxiety. And that is something I will carry with me even after this all ends: learning to not overbook myself. Being selective about gigs. Resting. I learned to stay still. It's a surprisingly hard task. 

But as for many of us, the pandemic had its sinister side for me personally. It brought up a great deal of hurt and questioning that I had buried deep inside of me for years. Suddenly, without coping mechanics to quell it, it was right at the forefront. A lot of hurt having to do with my marriage. I had a great deal of insecurity about things: had I gotten married too young? Had I married someone I didn't know? I'm not sure I was too young, because trauma has a way of maturing you, and I've had my share and had to mature more quickly than many of my peers. But I did know that I had married someone I didn't know. I had known that for years. But I didn't want to admit it. We tried, time and time again, to address our issues with counseling. Me: codependency. The hurt from my father. The walls I built. Poor conflict management strategies. Poor communication. And him: alcohol. The thing that had haunted us for years. The one thing I hadn't known about going into our marriage. The one thing that would haver changed everything, had I known about it. I have carried so much guilt over it all for years, and truthfully I hesitate to write about it now, lest I seem like I'm just trying to drag my ex-husband through the mud. He deserves to tell his version of his story, same as I am free to tell my story, too. Because there are different versions. There's the woman who become cold, distant, and angry when she found out. There were the times she picked him up, having gotten a call, and he was a person he wouldn't even remember the next day, and she screamed at him. She was the woman who held it inside and decided to talk to someone else about it while questioning if she should be in that marriage. There was the woman who tried to, sometimes begrudgingly, do counseling at his bequest, insisting she didn't need it when she really did, but wasn't ready to open up yet. The woman who pinned all the blame on him. Who carried her anger and let it make her become someone he hadn't married: waiting for him to slip up. Picking after every trait she disliked. Realizing she'd made a mistake, just 6 months after getting married. But not having the strength to say so. She stayed. It was the Godly thing to do. She had to make it work. She hurt because of that decision to not be honest. To fully confront her pain. To heal. She became resentful. And he felt like he walked on eggshells because of it. 

The result of carrying so much hurt but choosing to hold it in to avoid hurting the person I loved was that I had threatened to end things several times over the years. And then this year, after being stripped of almost everything I knew: it happened for the last time. Except this time, there was no going back. Belongings were packed. Leases were signed. Tears were cried. Arguments ensued. Promises were made, later broken. She told no one, because she didn't truly believe it was the end. But as the long summer stretched by, and then the papers came one day, she finally had to let go. 

It was more painful than I could have imagined. There were days when it first happened, that I could barely will myself out of bed. That's when I realized I needed help. I got a psychiatrist. I bought every book on codependency and healing marriages I could find. I attended counseling steadfastly. I picked up new hobbies, forced myself to push down my walls and let my friends and family help me, despite wanting to ball up and fade, alone, in my condo. I thought the pain was so great that I couldn't make it. I would sit some days with the weight of it all, feeling my heart crush underneath my chest, and hurt me with every beat. I would pray on my hands and knees and cry to God, wiling him to hear my truest confessions and apologies. I thought it was for him, but he couldn't be brought back. 

But I could. 

I look back on this year, and I am so proud. I have grown more in 8 months than I did in the past several years. I broke painful cycles of codependency, and while I still struggle, I am learning to be happy in solitude, and happy with who I am. I still have my bad days. I struggle with inadequacy. I struggle with not being around the person I love 24/7, because the codependency I deal with makes me want to find my meaning in the person I love, and I have to wrestle with myself to not do that. I struggle with loneliness, and waking up in an empty bed. These things linger, and I will likely struggle with them my whole life: but like a chronic illness, I can get better at managing them, and I know I can thrive.

There was happiness in the last 5 and a half years. I discovered all the ways in which I loved my city. I looked out at the vast expanse of Chicago from stories up and explored the streets to my hearts content. A smile a mile wide spread across my face all the times I got to dance. I hiked mountains in Colombia, and rang in New Years atop a belltower in Prague. I listened I Wish I Was the Moon played on guitar more times than I could count and felt it resonate in my heart. The wind in our hair atop the lighthouse. The make-up birthday hike. Slow dances to La Vie en Rose. He was a good person. There were good times. There were bad ones. He did flawed things at times. I did flawed things at times. I did not feel like a good person, much of the time. There was great sadness in the last 5 and a half years. The pain of watching the person you love lose themselves to something when they can't entirely help it, and having been taken my surprise by it, is immeasurable. I felt my heart die and resurrect itself again over many times, trying to struggle with my feelings over it, and ultimately it was our undoing. Too great for me to bear, and too great for him to continue with me. It will be okay. Sometimes, forever doesn't mean forever. Sometimes, it's a lifetime in a few years: the birth, life, and death of a great love, teaching us its lessons and pushing us onwards to continue in another life when its time has come to end. I see now that this was how it was meant to be. I see now, in many ways, that this needed to happen, to teach me what I needed to learn. And so I am grateful.

There is happiness to come. Jordan has been my truest friend for almost 10 years: the man I could never forget, no matter where life took us, in its twists and turns and separate directions. His counsel has rang true on far more than one occasion, and I knew that if I ever needed help, he would always be there for me, in spite of how my choices impacted him. After everything happened this year, and we reconnected, it felt like the most natural thing in the world that we should be together. It felt as though, perhaps, it was always supposed to be this way. But I had had to find myself first. He was still there at the end of that road, after our paths had diverged, and finally when they came back together. And that in and of itself is a miraculous thing.

Tonight I take the last of my antidepressants, which I have been weaning myself off of this month. It is symbolic for me. It has not been an easy month, no longer having that cushion to dull the sometimes difficult to bear highs and lows. I did not even mean to time it to the end of the year, but I believe that it is rather fitting that I should close out 2020 by finishing the last of them. I have felt more fragile this month than I have in past months this year. But this year has made me strong, and I know that I will be okay. It's time to be who this year has made me. It's time to take all my lessons I have learned, and move forward. 

I am ready.

And my dreams in this new year? I will listen to them. They appear to hold some truth, after all. 

Coping with My Divorce.

 I got divorced.

I never saw myself doing this. I remember a walk I had had, one Autumn day when I was 15. Back before I knew anything about the world or what my life would be or who I would grow to become. I just knew that I was hurting. The family I had known my whole life was falling apart. The fragile walls of my life, fragments and pieces of adulthood that I was only starting to assemble, were cracking in place as I experienced my own existential crisis created by the brokenness that I was only a bystander to. There was a lot of fighting. I used to take a walk every day, because it kept me from slipping too deep into the depression I had begun to develop an intimate relationship with, even at that young age. I breathed the humid air, birds calling, spanish moss waving lazily in the tree limbs above my head. The black hammock. My home, a lifetime ago, tucked away deep in Florida. I think of the roads and I can't even remember where they all go now. I used to know them by heart. Dotted with citrus groves that gave the most heavenly smell come springtime. Ditches dug deep on the sides of the road, the creek running through, runoff for the rain come hurricane season. Dusty dirt roads scattered behind unobtrusive road signs. 

I knew then that when I grew up, I wanted a family of my own, one that could never be taken from me, and I never wanted to get divorced. I wanted a life free from the brokenness I experienced then and there, the brokenness that, while certainly no party's fault for causing, I carried with me into my own adult life. I swore to that young girl that I would create this life for myself. I longed for this reality, so deeply that I could feel my heart ache for it, before I had even learned a thing about love. I never wanted to grow up to feel as broken as I did then.

The day that I became a bride, I recalled this memory. My heart was full of joy deeper than I had ever known. I was creating my own togetherness. Together, we would vanquish the brokenness I had spent my life fearing. My deepest fear was being alone, after all. I was young, but my heart was earnest as I set out on this journey. "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same," I quoted from Wuthering Heights, as I spoke my vows. My soul had found its home, I had felt. I did not know that it would be temporary as I stood there, my heart racing, cheeks flushed in my ivory gown, my mind full of dreams. How could I have? 

And yet, here I am, 11 years after that walk amongst the orange groves, facing the same brokenness again. Brokenness of my own now. I am no bystander, anymore. 

May saw the darkest and most difficult day of my life, from my now ex-husband leaving, to him texting me not to contact him with the exception of divorce proceedings, without prior discussion of going through with a divorce since he left. I want to provide full disclosure lest someone state that I am playing the victim: I asked him to leave, initially. There are triggers we had built up that I found more difficult than I could have ever imagined overcoming. And then, after, I backtracked. I felt deeply that I had made a mistake, and I wanted to right it. Even if it took separation, even if it took time. I determined to reconcile, and determined that I did not want this. My point for saying that is, I am not an innocent bystander in this, regardless of my intentions in the end. 

But I did seek to reconcile and correct my actions. With every fervent action my heart could muster. Counseling. Marriage books, I read and ones I mailed to him. Fervent letters and apologies. Heartfelt prayers and tears to God. A small book I wrote, even. I wanted so desperately to manifest this reality, to face our heart and to truly heal. My heart was ready now. I don't think it had been before. I had had so far to go. But you should have done it 4 years ago, you told me. After you saw how much I hurt. That’s great that you’ve made progress. But you should have done it four years ago. It was never my job to fix you, and I never could have. There’s always been a darkness in your heart. That’s what you told me. I’d helped you through your darkness, too. But in the end you painted me as the broken girl. You chalked your issues up to growing pains. To me. Even though they happened before I ever knew about them. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. And I believed you. That I was the broken one. Unworthy of a chance after I’d finally had the push I needed to heal. I wish I had done it sooner too, I do. I guess I can’t help that I wasn’t ready. I needed the pain of the way I lost you to fully be willing to look in the mirror. I was hoping you would have seen how earnestly I changed after I lost you, and that you would be willing to have a true heart to heart, one that healed us. I believe we could have done it. If nothing else...that you could merely look me in the eyes and tell me divorce was what you wanted. But you could not even do that. 

I made so many strides in my life during that long summer, dog days that stretched on lazily, the world seeming to spin so slow in this mid-COVID phase. I spent as much time in the sunshine and outdoors as I could. I talked only to a select few close friends, deciding that I needed time for my heart to heal, needed time to teach myself that I didn't need someone else to make me happy, like my codependency had always told me that I did. I learned to care for myself: really care. Not just work, and eat, and sleep. Pursue my passions again. Cherish my heart. I read books. Dozens of them. I tended my garden. I explored new recipes. I poured out my heart in counseling. I wrote endless letters: to dad, to mom, to exes, to him. Facing hurt, confronting hurt, owning the hurt I had dealt, making connections between the relationships I had had, their trauma, and how it carried over into the relationships I had now. It was hard work. But it was rewarding work. As time passed, I opened up, bit by bit. My heart became ready. I widened my circle. I pursued new outlets: yoga. Developing new friendships. Learning to set boundaries with work and commitments. I am a work in progress. But like a school child, I taught myself things, slowly, and I learned. I changed. It was rewarding.

I was excited. I wanted to share the work that I had done with him, truly. I had hoped that this would heal us: two people willing to come to the table and truly own it all. In the end, it did not matter. The apology letter intended to own my hurt was met with a letter that never arrived, somehow getting lost in the mail. Perhaps that was fate. The books went unread. I, of course, cannot judge anyone for their decisions. We all make the ones we deem feel best for us.

So in spite of this, I did not get the conversation I was hoping for. Not as though these actions earned me that. We cannot necessarily earn the feelings of others. I received an email with divorce papers attached. I got them while I was treating a patient, one day, months later. I was not expecting them. I looked at the email, took a big gulp, and I kept a straight face as I finished the treatment session with my patient. You have done all that you can. Now, this is what you must do, I told myself.  

And then I took an hour long lunch and I cried. Needs to be signed by this week, he said. As soon as tomorrow. I was sent reeling again: it feels different when it is final. When it is real. But I had done enough healing the past several months to know that I had to carry on. Even though it broke me. I knew that I had to know, had to tell myself, that I had the strength to do so. So I did. I met and I signed the papers a week later. I knew then that it was finally time to extinguish the hope, extinguish the effort, extinguish the fighting for what we had built. So much of me did not want to. I did not know how to finally stop trying. But I did. This was, finally, the end of our story. A hot August day, mid-pandemic. The world had felt as though it had stopped spinning this year, and so too, had my heart for a while, so too, had we stopped spinning. I recalled our first dance. La Vie en Rose. 

Hold me close and hold me fast

The magic spell you cast

This is la vie en rose

When you kiss me, Heaven sighs

And though I close my eyes

I see la vie en rose

When you press me to your heart

And in a world apart

A world where roses bloom

And when you speak

Angels sing from above

Every day words

Seems to turn into love songs

Give your heart and soul to me

And life will always be

La Vie en Rose

Give your heart and soul to me
Give your heart and soul to me

And life will always be
La vie en rose

 I signed, not even looking at the scribble I placed on each page, stone faced. I said nothing. I walked back to my car. I looked at him. "This is what you wanted, in the end. Not me. Don't forget that. Goodbye."  

As I was forced still to reckon with the now all-too familiar innumerable pain and the process of healing, I asked myself:

How do you cope with it? How do you move on? How do you reconcile with yourself after promising forever to someone? How do you heal from the brokenness? I was tired. My whole life had felt like brokenness, to be honest. Broken family. Broken dad. Broken body. A life spent craving emotional support that I never could seem to get. Even the ones that say they'd never leave, even him, the one that vowed never to - well, he did, too. I did. We did. We both failed each other. My mom, of course, did her best with our family growing up. It wasn't her fault I chose to carry the pain of my childhood and adolescent years in the way I did. But I also couldn’t help it. After it all happened, when he left, my heart was left with so many questions, and I was reeling.

It was hard to not feel bitter. At COVID - I didn't even get to see his full face one last time, half covered by a mask. I did not get the satisfaction of an in person court date, even, but a Zoom call instead. 5 minutes. COVID was the fuel on the fire that set these events into motion, as I watched COVID strip away every coping mechanism, every distraction, that I possessed. How then could I have dealt with the triggers? We each had our addictions, after all. Mine was loving another: codependency. I needed to better love myself. Stop relying on someone to validate me. His was hard to overcome, too. So very hard. I watched him struggle for years. My heart hurt so badly, I guess because I hadn’t know about it before we married. And as a student, later as a young adult, I suppose I wasn’t fully equipped to handle it, didn’t know the best way to help, didn’t know how to not be so angry. Perhaps I should have done it differently. Perhaps I should have been better. Perhaps I could have done more. Perhaps, perhaps. Would life had been different, perhaps? Perhaps?

We can't think that way, once it has all settled. Learning to cope, to heal, and to rebuild is hard after divorce. Doing it in the midst of a global pandemic when the world has already stopped...as a codependent human being... is harder than you could imagine. And learning to as a person of faith is especially hard. You are hardwired to try, to try, to keep trying. To seek true, Godlike healing. Even if you made a mistake. If you heart desires true repentance and change, how do you not pursue it any longer? How do you accept that sometimes that's not enough, and that the lessons you learned that now guide the things you do... still fall short? It is hard, when you feel compelled to do all that you can. This makes stopping feel like the hardest thing. You feel angry and betrayed, almost. God, why did you want it this way? Is it because something is wrong with me after all? Did I not follow your guidance enough? Is it a punishment? I know that I deserve it. So many questions run through your mind, aimed at God. Confusion is one of them at the forefront.

It was all hard. When I truly started to heal, to get over things, I think I realized that the hardest thing for me was letting go of my immense guilt, to start with. I can guarantee you that nobody that gets married pictures themselves getting divorced. I truly believe that we enter into marriage with the very best of intentions. It was hard not to beat myself up over every single memory, every moment, every argument, every word once said. What could I have done differently? Could I have been more supportive? What if I hadn't said that one thing? If I had changed just a little bit, could it have still worked? I think it's important to realize that we cannot put all of that burden on ourselves. The point of my apology letter had been to fully own what I had done and accept the hurt I had dealt when I mailed it to him. Not gripe about what had been done wrong to me. That wasn’t the point. Because accepting what you have done is so important. And it's hard to get to the point where you are ready to do that. I get that. Especially if you feel like you've made apology after apology before things truly went bad. It's hard to come back to the table and be willing to once again take a hard and comprehensive look, and really dig deep and accept that you did the things you did to hurt the one you love. I acknowledge too that addiction is a hard thing. There is hurt and there are mistakes made on both sides. 

I coped with it bit by bit, him leaving. I denied it at first. The only thing that kept me going was the small hope that we could start over and fix things. And then after that hope was extinguished, I still hoped. I hoped every day. I didn't sleep on the right side of the bed, because it was once yours. The steps I took to healing were for you. The books I read. My counseling sessions. I knew we would not go through with it. We would have the conversation that would heal us. But by the time I realized, and you made it clear, that we wouldn't, I had started to realize and prepare for the likelihood that we wouldn't. By then I had learned to relish in the life I was living. To awaken with joy. To let the sun warm my soul. To hike by myself. I let the breeze wash my tears away. I let my strength fortify my heart. I let my prayers soften it. 

This experience was also hard for me because of a complicated relationship with my father. As many of you know, I haven't spoken with my father since... the day before I got married. Which was inexplicably a painful experience, however, it was lessened by the concept of creating a life with a man I loved and trusted and had chosen. A transition, of sorts. From who I was and left behind to who I wanted to be. My complicated relationship with my father and my side of that family is also what led me now to the decision to keep my last name as Mason. I do not have any ties to Lacy Ball anymore - that girl no longer exists, and never will. I made that decision the day I stopped talking to my dad. I do not regret that decision. But it is hard, because I carry a great deal of hurt, a great deal of confusion in this world about where I belong and where it is safe to place my roots. You feel a bit of a floater sometimes, when you don't have that figure to always run to when things go wrong. I have felt this way for a long while, because of my relationship with my father. Much of the hurt comes from how unworthy it makes you feel: that the one person on this earth that should truly love you unconditionally, does not. You go through life knowing this isn't true, but still carrying in your heart the feeling that you aren't and will never be quite good enough, that you were born with something wrong with you, something unlovable in you. No matter what people say to the contrary, you hold this feeling still, even just a tiny bit, and it lurks there in your heart and in the back of your mind. This is a pain I have had to spend a great deal of time reckoning with, and it has tapped into my old familiar fear of being alone. Am I alone? The answer is, of course not. This year has shown me what a wonderful support system I have. I can't tell you how much love, how much goodness and kindness people have shown to me whether they knew what I was going through or not. But there is always a part of your child heart that will tell you otherwise when you have experienced hurt from a parent, I will tell you that. And a part of you that resigns when it is affirmed: here we go again. Everything I thought was right. I really am too broken to be wanted. This is just the hand that life has dealt me.

The pain was so bad that I wanted to die. Truly. I thought back on all of the things that brought you and I here. Was it the day of the eclipse? I couldn't go to swing dancing for months afterwards, and face the people there. It was my fault: I didn't give up enough. Didn't show my support enough. Put you in unfair situations. But then, every time we went somewhere... that was what it became about. It was about how much more fun you'd have, if only. That killed me: feeling I should have done more, you affirming I should have done more. I poured my heart and soul into trying to carry myself through it all, and to carry you too. I know I oftentimes failed. I could have done so much differently. It wasn't just your burden to bear, you see. 

It was mine too.

I think of the fond memories. The first concert with Jared&Amber. You looked at me as they sang the words. I want to die, from loving you too much. 

The first time you played David Bazan in the car. His breakup album to Christianity. Prolific. We went hiking for your belated birthday. I was determined to give you a good birthday, since you hadn't celebrated earlier that year. 

The day we got engaged we went back to my home and we jumped into the pool with both our clothes on, laughing, and then ran upstairs to my room and collapsed, laughing, onto the bed, as we called your mom and gushed about how happy we were. Two weeks was all it had taken, to decide we had wanted to be with each other always. Our first kiss, after the secret show at 1 am at Smith's Old Bar I'd told you about. I'd had two dragon milk stouts and my head was spinny, but you took care of me. 

Our anniversary trip to New Orleans. There was a jazz band in the street, and I begged you to dance with me, and we twirled across the cobblestone, my purse flying, sweating in the humid area.

The night in Chicago we got lost and found that old Jazz bar. We were one of the only ones dancing, and the crowd clapped.

Now you treat me worse than a stranger.

I wanted to die from loving you too much. That was always my intent, my heart's desire. But I cannot. I cannot anymore, and you asked me not to, anyways. That makes sense.
I must go on. Now, I go on without you. Is it for the best? I think so. There is a life that calls to me, a life I still have yet to live. You are so young, after all, they tell me. You'll find someone else. Ten years later. I can't help but think that... maybe all of this... worked the way it was supposed to. Even if I don't understand why God wanted it this way. Maybe he didn't, and we just did that, because we're human and we're sinners and we're flawed and bad at listening to him. 

I wasn't ready, not totally, for it to end. But bit by bit, in the quiet spaces, through the subtle shifts, I became as ready as I could be.

Why am I sharing this? A simple reason, really. It is because of my desire and commitment to myself to face my vulnerability head on. My vulnerability is something I have reckoned with every since my diagnosis of Type 1, after all. Why? Because there's something poignant about facing your reality. A freedom you give to yourself. You take control of your narrative. You own your truth. And I relish in it, as hard as vulnerability can be. I often find that it lends courage to those who are on their own path to reconciling with their own vulnerability. And if I can be a source of strength to any, I consider this openness worth it. 

The news at the end of it all, is this:

I did find the healing I was searching for. I found the healing and the hope that I needed. I think that a lot of people think that this means that you no longer get sad, or morose, or depressed, or angry, or melancholy. This isn't true. I feel all of these things, from time to time. Hurt and heartbreak is a funny thing. It becomes part of us, sinking into our patchwork quilt hearts, growing us and teaching us its painful and indelible lessons. It stays with us, oftentimes a silent figure in the background of our lives, that shapes us as we live onwards. It does not fade. We simply grow with it. And that is what makes us stronger, and makes hurt beautiful, in the odd way of looking at it like a prism. I am stronger now, far stronger than I ever knew that I could be. My heart is still full of love for the man I no longer call my husband, but my heart knows that this love cannot remain the same as it was. I stride forward now, facing this world with hope and a heart open and full of love. As it turns out, I did create togetherness. 

I just had to go through a great deal of pain to realize that I didn't need another human to do that. I needed to breathe. I needed to trust in the process. I needed to learn how to wake up in the morning with a heart full of joy, and smile at my blessings. I needed to relish in the love and support of the relationships I have built around me my whole life. Trust God a great deal more. Forgive myself. I needed to let my hurt shape my heart into a stronger woman, so that it could finally take the back seat.

To realize the indelible truth that is paramount to living the life God has intended for me:

Yes, I have been broken more times than I can count. 

And yet still I am whole. 

It's Time to Share What's Going on in My Life with You.

Today I exhaled a sigh of relief. I don't know when I decided it was time, but all of a sudden, I did, and it was like a switch flipped in me.

Ever since I was an 88 pound teenager, bruised from IV's, bare faced, teary eyed, alone and confused in a hospital room as I faced my new life with a chronic illness, a life I had to decide was still worth living, I have learned and believed one firm truth: 

To own my truth is power. To own my truth is to be vulnerable. And it will free me. And that it was this post intends to do. 

I need you to know some very important things before we begin. Firstly: this post only comes from a place of love for the people mentioned in it. And second, I write it not from a vindictive place. I write it not to get attention. I write it to heal. I write it because I deserve to live my life and feel free to live in my truth about what my life is and looks like right now. And to do that, I must write this.

Deep exhale.

My husband left me in May.

It is not fully his fault, and it is not fully my fault. It is the fault of two triggered people with communication faults and the need for a great deal of counseling to work through our individual traumas. I will never sit here and write about how horrible (x) is, or how it is all his fault, or how I was done wrong and I have nothing to be blamed for. The truth is, the past few years I don't think I've really known who I am. I think I lost track of who I wanted to be, I think I refused to acknowledge my trauma and hurt hadn't been fully resolved, and I accept that it made me, at many times, someone that is hard to love. I am honest and open about my faults, therefore if you have questions, I'm happy to answer them privately. But the purpose of this post is really to walk through my healing journey. 

I did ask him not to leave. Actually, I begged. On my hands and knees. I poured out my heart, and acknowledged that I had made a mistake. Even though I was the one that first instigated it. He left and he requested complete radio silence and space, we agreed to an open ended separation, and I did a poor job of honoring that, because through many months of counseling for codependency issues, this is actually akin to going through withdrawals... and it's extremely painful. I could not eat. I lost several pounds. I could not sleep. All I could do was wallow. I didn't know what to do with my life. I wanted to harm myself. I couldn't see a life beyond what was in front of me. 

Because I did a poor job of honoring that, he texted me that he would no longer communicate with me unless it was in regards to divorce proceedings. And I had a mental breakdown. I remember that day so clearly. I was about to take my bike out for a ride. I had done the wrong thing - I'd left a hammer drill he'd let me borrow off at his front door with a couple of pastries I thought he'd like and his absentee ballot. The hammer drill would have been heavy and expensive to mail. I wanted to give it back, to show I wasn't petty. It was an invasion of space, though. That I'll acknowledge. 

I felt shock when I saw he'd texted me, and then I felt numb, and then I slumped down. "No, no, no, no, no" I whispered, louder each time. I watched my world crumble in a second, and it hit me like a brick wall. I called him. No answer. I texted him, pleading. "Please, don't make this kind of decision over text. Please. Talk to me. I can't handle this pain. Not over a text." 

I managed to make it inside with my bike. I fell down in a fetal position, tears streaming down my face. I didn't know what to do. I must have called 30 times. I left one voicemail, begging him to at least tell me in a face to face conversation.

But he did not respond. 

This was the worst night of my life, with one hundred percent certainty. Sleep was out of the question. I was alone. My panic attacks were so severe I couldn't stop hyperventilating. I had never felt so badly in my life. I wanted, I needed, to make it stop. I wanted to go to the hospital. But the bill would be expensive. I didn't know how to cope. I crawled under the covers after crying for hours, trying to plead him to answer the phone. I shivered. I tried to sleep, but hours later, I still couldn't, and the pain in my chest was so bad I could hardly move, hardly breathe, I thought it would tear me in two. I was so close to going to the hospital. I called Grady's crisis line instead. It was 3 am. I couldn't stop hyperventilating. "Please help me," I cried to the woman on the phone. "I don't know how to make it stop hurting. I'm alone and I've never hurt this bad in my life," I cried to her, tears like I had never experienced in my life. My heart felt like it was being ripped apart with fire. In between my hyperventilating,  I cried to her that I felt like I needed to go to the hospital. I needed to make the pain stop. The night was still so long. When I got off the phone with her, I curled up, pulling the covers over my head. I willed myself into a fitful round of several naps until 7 am. I called my supervisor. She knew, vaguely, what had happened. I told her I was not mentally stable enough to come in. She found someone to cover me and she understood. And then I called the urgent care down the street. I needed something to make me calm down, Valium, something. My panic attacks hadn't stopped since 6 pm the night before. I had had them, without relent, all night. I talked to a very kind woman on the phone about what had happened. "Oh honey," she said. "It's going to be okay. I'm going to help you. Listen. We don't do that kind of thing here. But I know an urgent care that may be able to help. And I'm going to call you back later and make sure you're okay. Is that okay, Lacy?" I cried and told her it was. I didn't know if I could drive. I was still hyperventilating. I could hardly breathe. But I had to. I couldn't sit in my condo, alone, with these horrible and unrelenting panic attacks. I wasn't sure if I could make it to the place in Buckhead. But I had to try. I didn't have anyone else to help me. Our mutual friends had blocked me after what had happened the night before. I had very few other local friends. So I packed my medication in my purse in case I ended up going to the hospital. I put on a pair of gym shorts. I put my hair up in a pony tail. Bare faced with my glasses, shaking, I stepped outside and I got into my car. I couldn't stop shaking. The pain was so immense. I plugged in the address of the urgent care. And then I called my mom.

"Mommy," I cried, tears pouring down my face again, hyperventilating still. "Mommy. I need you. Please." 

I told her what happened. I told her I needed something to make my anxiety stop. I told her I needed her. My mom listened, and she booked a flight for that afternoon. I cried in between waves of panic attacks until I made it to the parking lot of the urgent care, having summoned all my strength to keep going and make it there. I had hung up the phone by now. I walked inside, tears streaming down my face. I knew I looked insane. I felt insane. I told them what happened. I was hyperventilating still. I asked them if someone could see me. If there was anything they could give me for the anxiety. It had been 15 hours now. How could panic attacks last this long? I waited in the lobby for 30 minutes while they whispered in the back. A young lady came out and knelt down. The tears and my mask made my glasses fog up. "Honey," she said. "I'm sorry. We don't do anything like that... the only other place is the ER. Just go to the ER," she told me. 

"It's so expensive," I told her. $3000, at least. "I know it's hard. But I need you to breathe," she told me gently. "Please," I cried. "I don't know what to do." She saw me out, and I sat in my car, another dead end. I tried calling a few psychiatrists, asking for  a same day appointment. "It's an emergency," I told them. 

But no one took same day appointments. "You'll have to try Peachford," One of the secretaries told me. "They'll see you same day." 

Peachford was the mental hospital. I had truly hit rock bottom. I didn't know what else to do. It was Peachford, or the ER. I called my mom to tell her I was going. "Do not go." she said. I explained to her that I was having a mental breakdown, I couldn't stop having panic attacks, and that I needed help, and I knew this. I needed help. And I was utterly alone. She wouldn't be in for a few more hours. "Don't sign anything, then..." she warned me. I was so nervous as I pulled into the parking lot. I hesitantly gave them my ID and insurance. They led me to a door. "You're not going to keep me here, are you?" I asked the nurse, scared and hesitant, worried this was a bad idea. "Only if we think you're a harm to yourself, honey. Do you still want to go in?" I'd come all this way, and I had no other options. I nodded and I was led into a room. She locked my purse, my phone, and all my belongings in a cabinet. I waited an hour for a nurse to come in. She interviewed me. I told her what happened. I told her I desperately needed to see a psychiatrist, to get my anxiety under control. She was very kind. She deemed I wasn't a harm to myself, and she wrote me a referral to see someone the next day. I felt better just knowing I had options. I blinked in the bright sunlight when I was let out, thankful to be outside again. I called the doctor's office and got an appointment scheduled for the next day. And then I drove home and crawled into bed, fitfully napping, until my mom called me and told me she'd arrived. I sat on the couch with her, resting my eyes, trying to make the pain subside. Breathe in, breathe out. I only had to survive until tomorrow, and then I could get some help, I could get stable, I could get through this. I only had three patients I needed to see the next day, thanks to COVID having cut my caseload down. I did my telehealth appointment. I had scheduled an appointment with my old counselor, since the counseling app wasn't really doing much for me or giving me the support I needed. 

I wasn't feeling better, but I was... more stable after that day. I took a Klonopin when I needed it for the anxiety attacks. My mom took me to wash my car and made me eat what I could. She cleaned up around the condo, cleaning things only moms think to clean, like the fridge grate and the trash can. I went on bike rides after she left. She reminded me, "the little things are important." That stuck with me. I didn't know how to live on. It would take the antidepressants a few weeks to work. But the next weekend, I drove to Charleston to help my best friend go wedding dress shopping. I was happy to share in her joy. Every free moment... I was preoccupied with my sadness. With what I could do to change things. To get him back. I read dozens of books on cognitive behavioural therapy. An amazing one, called facing love addiction. I read books on childhood emotional neglect. I read an incredible marriage book and started a program designed to help get my marriage back on track. I sent him a few, hoping perhaps he'd read them, hoping he'd gleam useful information like I had. Praying. I prayed every night. I delved into church services. I prayed for him. I had sent him a text two days after what had happened, to tell him I'd always be there to help him no matter what. That he'd always be the love and light of my life. That I'd give him the space he desired until he sent me divorce papers as he said he would do. That I treasured all of our 5 years together, and would love him, forever and always. 

Because it hurt, and I was angry. But it felt so, so much better to love. I have learned that: It is always better to love. And this is what I intend to do, in spite of my own mistakes and flaws.

And that was what I was going to do. I did counseling weekly. I took the antidepressants. After a time, I needed less Klonopin. My daily bike rides were helping. The sunshine warmed me down to my very soul, it felt. I'd sit out at my favourite park in the grass, soaking in the sun, trying to delight in the little things. I felt like an alien in my own body. I was losing weight, still unable to eat, physically sick most mornings. I couldn’t eat breakfast. I saw my psychiatrist on the phone two weeks later. I told her I couldn't sleep, I awoke at 3:30 every morning and fitfully turned until daybreak, and was then so exhausted I could barely work. She prescribed me sleeping pills. They helped me sleep, helped me get on a schedule. I wasn't ashamed. I had healthcare, and I acknowledged I needed help, otherwise I'd scarcely be able to get myself off of the couch, let alone function or work. There is no shame in that. I feel strong for seeking help. I truly do, and I know I am. The first 1.5 months, I came home depressed every day. I didn't know how to live alone. 5 years. I could hardly eat. My anniversary had been that May. Ha. I pet my cat. I had bought a guitar - I did start to try to learn that.

One weekend, I went on a hike in Roswell. I soaked in the sun, I smelled the freshness of the air, and then I went to one of my favourite coffee shops up there - Crazy Love. I sat on the patio for hours and read my books about codependency, jotting down notes. I was learning so much about how to communicate and my toxic patterns. How my dad not being in my life left me with a void I unfairly looked to others to fill. I wrote my husband a ten page letter - an apology letter. I acknowledged everything I had done wrong, and everything I had done wrong alone. I wanted to own my mistakes, and own how I had hurt him. Only then could I accept my flaws and work to be better. I mailed it off. It is hard to not do something. That is how my mind works. But I was learning.

One afternoon, I was lying in the park listening to the new Phoebe Bridgers album and a monk came and gave me a stack of books on spirituality. He was kind. Another day, I stopped to pick wildflowers on the side of the trail, and I put them in a vase when I got home. The little things. I washed my car monthly. I learned How He Loves Us on guitar. One weekend, I went to home depot and bought $60 worth of plants, and then a plant stand, and then christmas lights for the patio, and I created an oasis out there, delighting in allowing my plants to flourish daily. I realized I loved checking on them every afternoon, lovingly watering them, picking off the dead leaves, smelling the fresh soil as I repotted them as they grew. I loved watching their green leaves grow, the stalks growing longer, the labors of my effort apparent. I loved tasting them in the food I cooked. I made fresh coffee in my french press or Chemex each morning and delighted in ordering from my favourite companies. I discovered a woman, Mad, left out free seedlings just down the road from me, and I'd ride my bike back from the beltline and grab as many little seedlings as I could carry. Okra, garden beans, Kale, basil, fennel, marigold. I planted them all. I smiled at strangers. I read books in the sun. I played guitar on the patio. My friends and I went to Asheville and I went on a spiritual hike up Mt. Mitchell in a 55 degree, utterly vicious rainstorm. I prayed the whole way up. "Faith cometh by hearing," I cried. One of my friends, also a therapist, had a patient who she told I was going on a spiritual hike, and she sent her with several verses for me to guide my journey. I recited them all. I wasn't sure how it worked, but I laid my heart at the foot of that mountain and I ascended, begging for God's guidance. I chanted “still my heart, so I can hear” the entire way. 

I wasn't magically fixed when reached the top. But he stilled my heart, just as I had asked. He stilled it, so that I could listen. And I did. I started into a rhythm. And I decided to open up to people. Strangers. Clients. My sister. My best friends. Online acquaintances. I shared my struggle and my vulnerabilities. I kept praying. I listened to Brenee Brown. I kept reading. I journaled. I wrote letters. I kept up with counseling. I reached out to old friends. I went kayaking. We got dinner together, shared beautiful conversations. We shared hour long conversations. I remembered how much I loved these things. My heart was starting to warm, bit by bit, in spite of me. 

The antidepressants and the antianxiety medications were a game changer. As I gained back an appetite, I started meal planning. I made meals a week in advance. I scrubbed the condo until it shone. I watered my plants, learning to celebrate having a view of the bridge I'd gotten engaged on years ago, instead of closing my eyes and trying to shove out the pain. Grateful for the joy I had had those 5 years. I paid bills. I organized and downsized and rearranged. I felt... good. I felt... not normal. But I felt on top of things. I visited friends. I watched more sermons. I opened my heart. I stilled it. I prayed, palms up, on my knees, on my patio, lush and green with plants, overlooking the city I'd fallen in love with 6 years ago, sometimes crying, sometimes smiling with joy. 

We all gaze up at the same moon. 

And then all of a sudden, one day, I was driving back from a (very rare these days) gig and I realized...

I'm happy. 

I'm happy. I'm not... devastated anymore. I'm not broken. Not even close. I was going home to a beautiful condo overlooking the city skyline. I had a beautiful patio I could relish in daily. A bike and a strong body to take me as far as I desired, despite a debilitating illness. I'd started hot yoga at a studio. My body looked beautiful. I looked beautiful. I was fit. I was strong. My clothes got bigger on me, but I was healthy. I was feeding myself good, healthy food. I delighted in cooking. I was nourishing my mind with books to help me grow, and church was nourishing my soul. My friends reminded me of who I was. Who I am. Why I am loved. I was now doing things freely because they brought me joy, when I wanted, how I wanted. I bought myself little gifts. Took baths. Did my nails. Learned more guitar. Wrote letters.

I realized, somehow between the devastation and rock bottom, and the copacetic, quiet and seemingly endless days to follow... I had found myself. I realized... 

I am not who I am with. I am so much more that that. 

I am strong. I am free. I am beautiful. Imaginative. Creative. Whimsical. I delight in the little things. I cheer people on. I dance with my whole heart. Laugh with my eyes until I cry. Marvel in the beauty around me with the heart of a child. There has never been a challenge I could not overcome. I am powerful. I have so many blessings and so much abundance. I have a beautiful roof over my head, I have a job I love, I have health insurance, I have ride or die friends, and even people I hardly know - even they have prayed over me, loved me, supported me in my struggle. I have learned the sound of my own voice, to make music. My hands create beautiful art. I heal patients with my knowledge and my touch. God does not want me, or any of us, to suffer. He cares deeply for us. He made me realize... it's okay to stop and breathe. 

I.Am.Me. And I am comfortable with that. No matter what.

I love who I am becoming.

It is okay.

To be okay with the unknown. 

It's okay to learn to be happy alone.

And it's okay to love... and to also accept you have done everything you can do and move on. To breathe and move forward. To stop looking back. To embrace new things. 

I have done all that I can within my control... and I am at so much peace with that now. I've mailed letters. Sent books. Prayed. I've searched my own heart and trekked down the journey of change. And now... I can only control myself. In this quiet, I am the only one in charge of where I go from here. What I choose to do. What will I do?

I will graciously enjoy my abundance and blessings. I will praise Him for his goodness. I will care for my strong body. I will love myself and internally validate myself because I don't need a human to do that for me... and I never did. My father left a void in my heart and I unfairly looked to others to fill it. No more: because I have filled it. I come home at the end of the day now and I'm proud of the work I've done. I come to my beautiful home and I create things and I care for myself in a way I haven't done in a long time. I pick flowers off the sidewalk and I relish in the rainstorms and I laugh at the joyous things and I cry to the new Taylor Swift album and I smile because I am beloved my God, as is he, as are we all. 

Life is full of so much purpose, and I am so strong. I thank God for making me so strong. I have a long way to go, but I have come so far I can no longer see the beginning when I turn around to look back.

This is my truth. And like a fire, I have been refined, and I know that I will prosper and be strong, no matter what. The darkest days of my life have still seen me through to some of the most light filled in this season we are living in. And for that I will always sing my thanks.

Peace and love to you all.