This Is Me Trying

Perhaps the really big and amazing thing I’ll do with my life is simply not give up.

You can’t heal in the places that broke you.

I can’t write in the spaces that left me broken. I’ve tried over and over and over and I’d rather throw my laptop into the stagnant creek my boys keep trying to convince me to take them fishing in while it’s 104 out than open up a fucking Wordpress dashboard ever again.

So I’m looking at this fresh, blank space, and it’s me and my words. SEO and ads and sponsors and ideal post length and beautiful photos to break up calculated blocks of text… they aren’t here.

I feel less exposed.
And hopeful.
And cautious.
And not really ready at all, but this is me trying… again.

Welcome xoxo

______________________

People always assume it was the RV trip that lead to our marriage coming apart. It wasn’t a blissful experience. It was extremely stressful and it left me broken, but our marriage? It thrived on chaos. We were a great team when it was us against the world. I mean, if “great” also means normalizing lashing out and yelling at anyone we love because “that’s just how we communicate.”

But it really was a weirdly magical, hellish time. And it wasn’t the reason I left our marriage.

It was, however, my greatest act of escapism and self sabotage, wrapped up in genuine belief that THIS was going to be the reset we… I needed, and tied with a bow that I could and would be a “Boss” and I would “hustle hard” and “make it happen.” It would simultaneously fill my need for freedom and my need to finally live up to all my “potential” to do really big and amazing things. All of that PLUS my kids would get an experience I never dreamed we could give them.

A previous version of me would pause here and interject something self deprecating about how I KNOW someone is going to read that and have terrible things to say about me and my mental health and my priorities, and I’d type it so I could be the first one to say it - take some of the sting out.

That’s just the kind of casual observation I have now about myself- on the other side of 5 years of falling apart and thousands spent on therapy and leaving my marriage.

I’ve been trying to start this Substack for months. Literally I write it at the top of my wishful to-do list every day, and every night I tell myself it’s ok. I wasn’t ready yet.

Tonight, I wound up in the part of my camera roll on my phone that houses all the photos and videos of that weird, wild, wonderful, woeful RV trip. I have so many incredible photos, y’all. And I’ve hardly printed any. I don’t even know if they are all properly backed up.

All that time and energy and money on a life-changing experience that feels like I’m looking at someone else’s life when I see evidence of it.

There’s a lot to process still. There’s a lot of my story I’m still letting myself read for the first time. But, tonight after I saw those pictures I felt compelled to write. To just tell you all that I’m trying. Perhaps the really big and amazing thing I’ll do with my life is simply not give up.

This is me trying.