The Woman Who Is Me…

The Woman Who Is Me…

I learned hunger before I learned hope. Two pieces of bread and the wish that something was in between. The lights would go. The money would go. My father went first.

My mother waitressed and drank her way through every month that almost didn't make it and I watched her and I learned: this is what you get. Life is unfair and so hard. want less. be grateful. stay.

Then a man with a title and a Bible put his hands where God never told him to. Paid for my McDonald's first. Said the devil made him do it after. Said sorry to my face while he was doing it to my friend. And my sister. And so many others who also learned to forgive before they learned they had the right to be angry.

The church put me on trial for being honest about my pain. Called it warfare. Called it darkness. Told me my struggle was evidence of my sin. And we are born sinful and unworthy, unclean. What that did to my already insecure heart and confused soul, made me retreat more. Life is unfair but once we die, then we get abundance?

I believed them. That is the part that still takes my breath. I believed them. BULLSHIT!

I married young not because I was naive but because my body looked at the exit options and calculated: “this is the fastest way out of this small town” . with no money for college or fuck, even guidence, i did what i thought i had to do. 

And landed me in a different kind of box.

Prettier walls at the time. Same lock. 

Mandy saw all of it. Mandy was there for all of it. Mandy was my best friend and my witness and my safe place in a life that did not have many.

She was 44 when she left.

She never got to build her dream life. Not because she did not want it. Because she was afraid. Because she medicated. Because we were both running on empty promises, fear, and generational shit that was never ours to carry. Because no one ever told us that the cage door was open and we could fly out anytime. 

When she died something in me broke open.

It wasnt some  beautiful moment… definitely not an inspirational version. Like a door kicked off its hinges. Like a woman who finally understood that living small until you run out of time is the only thing that should have ever terrified her. 

So like the phoenix that i was that used to tear off her own wings, I took my power back for the first time in my life. I looked at the fear and the control and the men behind pulpits and the churches with their trials and the voices that said God won't bless this and I said

Fuck that story, watch me! 

I wrote the book. I built the business. I said the thing.

And I am not all the way there. I will tell you that honestly. I am still climbing. I still need my own money so I can have my own choices. That is the truth I will not dress up for you.

But I am freer than I have ever been.

And I am taking every woman I can with me. This is NOT a rebellion. This is an assignment!