I didn't choose this life.
Being divorced with two children before I hit thirty certainly wasn't on my bucket list.
However, I also never had the desire to launch my own businesses and become a member of the new honorary society of involuntary #MOMbosses. The aforementioned life-altering experience begat the next so, here I am. Thrust into a life where the only choice I was given was to fly or fall and my children will never crash and burn on my watch.
So, I grind.
After having dinner with my family to celebrate my birthday last week, a friend came over to hang out for a while. Our schedules had been crazy busy for about two months and some much-needed quality time was the perfect birthday present. We joked, laughed and shared the joys and weights of the past few months. At one point, he mentioned that he'd been so busy lately that he didn't even know Hurricane Nate was barreling directly towards us a couple of weeks ago until about two days before it was scheduled to hit. In the midst of more laughter, I looked at him and pressed pause on the chuckles for a second to make a quick confession.
"You know I was a little (lot) salty that you didn't check on me to make sure I straight before the storm hit, right?"
Just as he responded with a smirk and "You right. I dropped the ball on th...", I interrupted.
See even though my feelings were real, I didn't feel like they were justified. I reminded him that it wasn't his responsibility to look after me; I'm no one's responsibility but my own. We aren't involved romantically, my children are precisely that; mine. The situation forced me to get ish handled on my own. Growing up on the Gulf Coast has made me nothing close to a stranger on how to prepare for a hurricane. I Googled a checklist and made sure me and my little people were fully stocked with bottled water, non-perishable foods, flashlights, batteries, candles, snacks, coloring books, crayons, etc. I bathed everyone early, downloaded their favorite movies to my iPad, dressed everyone in our pajamas for the night and waited.
He still apologized, and tried to convince me that it actually was his responsibility to check on me as a man who has placed himself in my life as someone who cares about my well-being so he should've done more.
Unfortunately, I believe I would waste several irreplaceable seconds of my life by filling them with feelings of disappointment if I lived life within the walls of that version of truth.
When I found myself almost nine months pregnant with my son and sleeping in my grandmother's guest room with my 15-month-old daughter as my then husband and I were on the brink of disaster. Now, at that point in time I had a few options. I could have allowed hurt to overcome me and sink into depression. I could've allowed bitterness to consume me and attempted to retaliate. Or I could've pressed HARD into my Savior, stepped up my game and got on my grind by creating several ways to provide for my little family just in case I was ever in a position where I had to do it all on my own. It was sink or swim.
Boss up, or bow down.
Rise to the challenge, or kneel in defeat.
I lived life under the covering of my step-father from age 6 to 26. That covering then shifted to my husband, and it has rested in my own hands since he allowed the words "I have no desire for there to be anything between us anymore" to flow from his lips in 2015. At this moment, the only consistent covering in my life is God and there's no better protection than that.
So yes, I have issues being dependent on other people. Especially men. I pause when he holds doors open for me, often tell him I don't need help carrying things because I've been carrying the weight of abandonment on my own for so long that I've somewhat forgotten how to let someone share the load.
However, these are the cards I have been dealt and I have placed each one in the hands of The Father.
I didn't seek out this life.
But I'm living it.
Like a boss.
xoxo,
Ashley Danielle