Tag: real life

From Survival to Truth

I no longer shrink myself to fit his version of the story.

He told me he hopes I don’t get in trouble for “lying” to the domestic violence program. In his mind, because he didn’t hit me, there was no abuse. That’s what he clings to. That’s what he throws back at me, as if the absence of bruises erases the years of damage.

But I know better now. Abuse isn’t just a fist. Abuse is the way he controlled the money, the way he isolated me, the way he made me question my own sanity until I couldn’t tell which way was up. It’s the fear that lived in my chest, the shame that kept me quiet, the constant shrinking of myself just to keep the peace.

People don’t see those wounds. They see me standing, functioning, surviving, and they think maybe it wasn’t that bad. Some even question me to my face, or worse, behind my back. But those unseen scars follow me into every part of my life. They shape the way I make decisions, the way I trust (or don’t trust), the way I still fight to believe I’m enough.

So no, I didn’t lie when I asked for help. I told the truth of my experience, even when it felt small compared to what others survived. I told the truth of years lived in survival mode. And asking for support wasn’t deceit, it was survival. It still is.

I didn’t lie to survive. 

I survived to finally tell the truth.

I Am Worthy

Things No One Said

I became a widow in the dark.

Weeks earlier, I had finally moved out of the FEMA trailer.

It wasn’t a fresh start. It was just another chapter in survival.

No one pulled me to the side and said,

“Are you okay?”

“You don’t have to figure this out alone.”

I made a new partner in the dark, in 2013.

Not with intention, but in response to the weight I was carrying.

One moment of unmatched intimacy, and the direction of my life shifted again.

But not once did someone say,

“Let’s talk.”

“I’ll walk with you through this.”

“I’ll help you see clearly when the world feels blurry.”

No one said,

“You’ve been through enough.”

“You don’t owe anyone your performance of being okay.”

I had a friend who got a luxury car.

She called her friends from the dealership, hype in her voice.

I showed up. In the dark.

I was already behind on what I drove to that lot.

And still, I traded it in.

Left with another debt—26% interest.

No one pulled me aside and asked,

“Why are you doing this?”

“What are you trying to fill?”

People looked at the survivor’s benefits I received for my children and assumed I had it good.

But they didn’t see what it was costing me to stay afloat.

What I was carrying.

What I was trying to unlearn.

It’s taken years for me to admit this:

I didn’t know how to not struggle.

Even when things got better, I’d wait for the ground to drop.

Because that’s what I’d been taught—by experience, not words.

I wonder sometimes—if people from my past ever think about the version of me they encountered.

The one trying to hold it all together.

The one doing what she thought she had to.

The one who needed guidance, not judgment.

Presence, not praise.

There’s so much I wish someone had said.

But now I’m learning how to say it to myself.

And maybe, someone reading this will remember the silence they left behind.

And do better next time—with their sister, their friend, their coworker,

Or the version of themselves they’re still trying to forgive.

Summer 2008, flew my girls to Disney World. Today, I still wear that Coach Fanny pack. Alex still keeps her hair in a bun, Eb keeps tshirts on, and Syd still carries a tote.

If this stirred something in you, let it move you into action.

Be the one who checks in.

The one who sits beside someone in the dark, even if you don’t have the answers.

The one who says, “Let’s talk.”

“I see you.”

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

You don’t need to fix anyone.

But you can choose to show up.

That alone can change a life.

Emotional Living, Not Factual Living

I’ve spent much of my life living by emotions, not facts.

Sometimes I think I’ve only understood the world through scenes from a movie. Real connection? I couldn’t tell you much about that, not from firsthand experience. I’ve never really bonded deeply, not in the way that feels grounding.

But in workspaces and parenting spaces, I became who I am. That’s where I found my rhythm, even when I didn’t know I was dancing. That’s where I found women, real women, who taught me what it meant to be a mother.

From 2008 on, Cindy, Trina, Karen, Dorothy, Sara, and Chris came into my life. We were single mothers raising daughters. That was our connection. We leaned on each other. We grew our children together while still growing ourselves.

Those women didn’t just show me motherhood, they walked it out in front of me, and I took notes with my life.

I tried different paths among them. I was always trying to find myself.

But I wasn’t really focused on me. I was focused on my daughters, making sure they made it further than I ever did.

From 2008 to 2012, I was “adulting” the best way I knew how.

I had community.

Mardi Gras balls. Museums. Zoos. Family moments. Parades. Church outings. Sleepovers.

I had a life.

Cyndi, now, feels like what Trina was to me for the past 40 plus years, familiar presence. A tether.

She has her circle of friends, and while I’m not always in that number, I’ve learned to be okay with that.

I’ve always struggled.

Could people could see something I couldn’t, that I wasn’t really pushing myself to grow. I never asked.

I figure that’s why it was easy for folks to throw me away. I carried so much, too much.

There were times that I was lost in the fog of it all.

And here I am, feeling stuck.

I’ve got to get out.

I whisper it every day:

Dear Lord, let me be not only awake… but aware.

Because for so long it was me and my girls.

Then me and Matthew.

Now… I just want it to be me.

It’s never really been just me.

But I want that now.

Dear Lord, guide me.

While I’m here, the truth is, I’m not really into books. Much of anything, really. I do things just to be doing something.

To seem relevant. To feel like I belong somewhere. I want to belong.

Sometimes I buy books just to say I have them. There’s one playing in my ear right now, something about reconstruction.

It’s like my little girl with her jumbo puzzle book for plane rides. Or my other little girl already prepared with her book before takeoff.

Is that what they got from me.

Hmph. I’m just now seeing that.

This is what emotional living looks like.

Not factual living.

But I’m learning.

I’m waking up.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2