The Summer I Stopped Pretending
The summer I stopped pretending my choices weren’t more about my fear than my character.
I wash my face with an Olay bar of soap. It’s not an intentional skincare choice, but it seems to be working fine. I’ve hardly broken out while using it. It’s gentle, and I like the smell. I wonder if that smell will forever be linked, now, to the memory of this summer, and to the food pantry that gave it to me.
I go on Thursdays, fill out a form for a family of 5, and check off if I want cans of tuna or mac & cheese. When they call my number, I enter a cozy but air-conditioned room and smiling, kind people with soft voices load my grocery cart with frozen meat, bread, pantry staples, and day-old bakery treats for the kids if they have any. I get to fill bags with fresh produce, only as much as each carton says I can take, usually 1-2, enough to make veggie tacos or a sheet pan bake.
I’m granted one toiletry request a week, again, if they have it. My request for hand soap was granted, and they tossed in the face soap, too. I’ve had a harder time getting saline solution, though. I make a mental note to donate saline solution one day when I’m not the one who needs this.
There have been a lot of moments over the last 3 years that have left me thinking, “Was that it? Was that rock bottom? Does it all change from here?” The food pantry was not that moment. The food pantry was on the way up from - what I now believe was- the actual rock bottom.
On Mother’s Day this year, I collapsed onto my bed at 11:30 pm, just back from days with the kids, and I cried out loud with such urgency and conviction: “I can NOT keep doing this anymore. I can’t be this person anymore. Something has to change.”
Much like the moment that broke me and sent me to the behavioral health hospital with a packed bag at the end of 2021, I knew I was standing at an impassable fork in the road. I knew I had to stop pretending to be ok with a lot of things, and I had to admit I couldn’t do this on my own.
This time, my spirit wasn’t broken, though, it was on fire.
There’s a lot I have to leave out here, a lot I wish I could give words to. There is so much we all will never know about each other. The summary: my heart, my joy, my trust, my intuition- all of it was shaken from a slumber over the course of a few weeks.
Mother’s Day was my wake-up call. A month later began my reckoning, and the summer I stopped pretending.
The summer I stopped pretending I could do it all on my own.
The summer I stopped pretending I wasn’t terrified.
The summer I stopped pretending my choices weren’t more about my fear than my character.
The summer I stopped pretending any of this was going to end up ok if nothing changed.
The last 3 years, my hero’s journey has been all about separating myself, untangling myself from a life I got lost in. It’s been about standing on my own two feet, reclaiming independence, and suffering through the hard times with blind faith that things would, somehow, work out.
I’ve certainly been courageous at times, but never to the point of admitting that this isn’t something I can get myself out of alone.
I’ve certainly accepted help before, but never help I didn’t already pre-determine how I’d pay it back, or pay it forward.
I sat in offices this summer, filled out forms, and told people details I never wanted to say out loud, even to myself. I owed it to myself and my kids to seek out and say yes to help because it’s there, and to pretend I can keep working all of this out on my own, while I sink deeper and deeper into a well I can’t climb- that’s not persistence or determination. That’s dumb and dangerous.
I’m 2 weeks into my new job now.
I applied for it the day after I found myself dissociating while explaining a situation I never thought I’d find myself in. I had to lay bare why I couldn’t pretend anymore to people I hardly know. It was a humbling experience, and it ignited a fight in me I haven’t had for a long time.
I barely slept for the next month as I progressed (quickly, thank goodness) through the interview process.
I sobbed when I got the job offer. Not even, like, happy tears- though I was happy. They were more like cleansing, cathartic tears. And then I could hardly stay awake for the next two weeks, until my first day.
I’ve not known how to put all of this into words- not even for myself. My journal sits empty this summer. I am overwhelmed in some good ways and some scary ways. I am hopeful, and I am unsure.
Whatever I am, though, I’m not pretending anymore.
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