Growth

Yesterday.

Where do I begin?

It felt like the climax of everything. It felt like the beginning of something. It felt like validation. Mostly, it felt good. Redemptive even.

It was a year ago yesterday that I packed up my kids and angrily threatened we'd be staying at my mom's house. And the first, last, and only time my then husband asked for a divorce. What a year it has been.

I'm participating in a series on growth so it would only be appropriate to focus less on the details surrounding one of the worst weeks of my entire life and focus more on the growth that happened because of it.

So let's go back.

I've mentioned what I consider "unreasonable confidence." I think confidence is collected and practiced. You aren't born with it. You learn it and lose it over and over again. Sometimes it's fake confidence and sometimes it's real. It's most certainly earned but it isn't full proof. Confidence is fragile and can be destroyed as quickly as it can build.

I had this unreasonable confidence. I had my son as a teenager, graduated high school before all my peers, went to college, got a degree - all building little blocks in my confidence tower. I shouldn't have been as confident as I was going forth into the world with my toddler. And looking back I don't consider that time as necessarily "hard." I should have been scared out of my mind but I wasn't.

Years later I was married and had another little boy with my then husband. My son was everything perfect in this world. And he still is. He suffered a non-fatal drowning at eleven months old. He died and came back to life a very different boy than who I had given birth to. It was scary. That was hard. But I had this confidence that everything would work out. We were going to show the world that this little boy was going to have the best life for as long as he was on this earth to live it. We weren't going to let this trauma and tragedy take over our lives. We would take him on trips, we'd show him everything and that all is possible. And we did. I was scared out of my mind and rightfully so. But I had someone who I could do this life with. So it didn't seem so scary. I was confident in this life we were living and I was confident in mothering my son in a different way. We'd be fine.

I also started a network marketing company three years ago. I had no idea what I was doing but I was successful with it pretty quickly. As it was initially about selling makeup, the underlying purpose became about unleashing my own potential and then showing women how to unleash their potential. It became about growing as a person and figuring out where I needed to grow in order to be a good leader. But I had this team of 500 women, inspiring confidence within them and ruling the world!

And then it happened.

Everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I was, almost all parts of my identity felt like it disintegrated. In January of 2017 my then husband decided our life just wasn't for him anymore. There was someone else involved and the only reason I even mention that is to illustrate how you can be the most confident, strong, advocating, "personally developed" girl boss but an affair can shatter all of that. It makes you feel like nothing. I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me and I was falling.

Boom. Confidence shot.

Everything I knew was different. Perhaps the most devastating feeling was wondering how this would effect my daughter. Things we bury tend to surface in these moments. Remember the story of shame from being from a single parent family and having to stand up and represent that? Well, here it was again. But now my daughter would be the little girl in that story. I felt so much shame about all of it. That this would be her life now. That there was an affair. That I wasn't enough.

Boom. Confidence shot.

And then there was my son. How would I take care of him alone? Sure, I had all the confidence in the world that we could do it together. But the future with a child that can't talk, walk, or really move, and who requires care almost around the clock and needs all basic functions taken care of by someone else looks very different when there is just one caregiver. I always thought it would be okay when my son grew bigger and heavier because his father would be there to carry him if I couldn't. But now? Everything looked very different. Everything looked scarier. And parts of it were like reliving his accident all over again.

And exactly how was I supposed to inspire women in my organization? How was I supposed to inspire anyone at all when I felt like I could barely get out of bed?

It was bad. It was gut-wrenching. It felt like my life was over. All my friends were married. My social media feed was married. My whole life was married. It was my whole identity. And it was just gone. So suddenly. There was nothing I could do about it. It felt like this is where my life was ending. In those worst moments, when you're stripped down, and it's just you and God, the pain can be so sharp you just don't want to feel it anymore. It felt like a death. It felt like I was dying.

But the funny thing about endings is that they're really disguised beginnings. I know that sounds trite but it's true.

It was the beginning.

There has been a lot that has taken place in between a year ago yesterday and today. I've done a lot of work. And I'm still trying to figure some things out and learn as I go. I do know a few things for sure. You have to feel the pain in order to get through it. There were many times I wanted to numb myself. I wanted to get so drunk that I didn't remember. But for one reason or another, plans fell through and it was just me and God again. And I had to feel every feeling. I was so mad at God for making me do this. I couldn't understand how this could be the plan for me. I couldn't understand why this was happening. I couldn't understand any of it. I prayed my face off and nothing was changing.

But so much was changing. The hard part is that you don't realize it until you're on the other side. We can make crowns of daisies and adorn our heads with them and run through fields holding hands proclaiming it's all about the journey! But sometimes that journey sucks. There's no way to sugar coat it. Sometimes that 8 hour car ride is full of flat tires, screaming babies, empty gas tanks, and no golden arches on the horizon with yummy fries. Yes, sometimes the destination is way better than the journey.

However, the growth from the journey is so totally necessary to arrive at the destination.

Yesterday marks a year. A year ago I was not okay. None of it was okay. And I didn't know how it would ever be okay again. But here I sit. Totally more than okay. I don't know exactly what God has planned for me but my soul somehow feels that this is exactly where I was meant to be at this moment. It feels like part of the plan all along. I feel more like myself than I ever have telling my story and typing these words. My voice sounds different - better different. It has been a journey of flat tires and screaming babies (and moms!) but it has also been a journey of beauty and growth and a lot of love. I'm surrounded by it.

And that confidence thing? I had to work on that again. It's like a muscle. You have to work to preserve it because if you have your guard down, BOOM. But I'm getting unreasonable about it again. Just like I always have. It's the only way to do it.

So yesterday in my "On This Day" feature on Facebook where they show you posts from years past, exactly three years ago to the date, two years prior to one of the worst days of my life, I posted one of my favorite quotes from the movie In the Wild. It's half spooky, half premonition.

"...But I wanna tell you something. From the bits and pieces I've put together... you know, from what you've told me about your family -- your mother and your dad... and I know you've got your problems with the church too... But there's some kinda bigger thing we can all appreciate, and it sounds like you don't mind calling it God... But, when you forgive... you love. And when you love, God's light shines on you."

A year ago I felt a great absence of love. Today I feel so much love toward me, from me, and around me. I have stretched in ways I didn't think I could. I'm alive.

Sometimes the downpour feels like it might drown you. But rain is necessary in order for things to grow. And growth is a beautiful thing.