STRENGTH

H.E.R. DEFINITION
STRENGTH is what's left standing after the lies stop working on you, including the ones you told yourself. It's not the absence of fear, it's choosing yourself anyway.

This episode is kinda raw. And even as I'm recording it, I'm not sure I want to put all of this out there. But. Here we go.

I had read his journal. I know, I know, before you judge me for that, just stay with me for a bit. I know I was wrong. And I own that.

"She's just a friend." That's what he said. Same story I'd heard a couple of times before. But this time was a lil different. He had already decided that he was done with our marriage. He didn't actually need to lie at this point. He just needed to still be the good guy, even to himself.

And here's the part I don't say enough out loud. I let him get away with that performance more times than I can count. Over the years, over the decades honestly, there were so many moments like this one. Messages. Logs. Things I saw with my own two eyes. And so many times, I chose to believe what he said instead of what I already knew. Every single time I did that, I felt a little weaker. A little dumber. That was the cost, right there in the moment. But the bigger cost, the one I can only see now, was time. I spent years of my life in something I already knew wasn't working.

I want to be honest about why. It wasn't because I couldn't see the truth. I could see it fine. I stayed because I was proud to be a wife. Because I wanted to keep my family together. Because somewhere underneath all of it, I was terrified of being alone, especially back when my kids were young and the thought of being a single mother felt like more than I could survive. Those weren't small reasons. Those were real. So I kept my eyes on the good parts of the marriage, and I got very, very good at glossing over the rest. I think a lot of us do that while we're still in the storm.

To be honest, we'd separated three times over the years. Oof. The first one was me. The second was him. And we managed to work things out. Seemingly. But this time, even after everything I endured, after everything I absorbed and swallowed and explained away to keep us together, he walked away. I remember thinking, "You've got to be kidding me." My mind was blown. It was utterly devastating.

I didn't decide when this ended. It was thrust on me. But I for damn sure rose to the occasion.

The healing didn't come all at once. It came slowly, in pieces. I found old journal entries going back years, and it was all right there in black and white, things I had lived through and somehow kept moving through. Somewhere around a year out of the house we'd built together, I noticed something small. I was paying my own bills. I was going places I wanted to go, sometimes completely alone, and I was happy about it. I was handling things as they came up without falling apart. And one day it just hit me. Life is good. I feel free. What in the world had I been so afraid of?

About a year ago, I was in conversation with a few different people, sharing pieces of my story the way you do when you've healed enough to talk about it without flinching. And I started noticing something. Every time I told a piece of it, I'd get this same reaction. "You went through that?" Over and over. "You are so strong." And I started hearing my own story differently, through their ears. Seeing my life through their eyes. I had so many stories, I could rattle them off like nothing, like they were no big deal. But hearing myself say them out loud, hearing other women's shock, I finally said it to myself. "Good grief. I did go through a lot of shit." And finally realizing and accepting... "Hell yeah, I'm strong."

Here's what I want you to know if you're still in your storm right now. If you're still choosing to believe the comforting untruths over your own two eyes. If you're still scared of being alone. Whether you stay or whether you go, both of those choices take strength. Neither one is easy. There is no version of this where you're doing the weak thing. The timing has to be right, and only you know when that is. I didn't get to choose mine. It was made for me. But I rose to it anyway.

And so will you.