About this time 6 years ago I was in a dark place. I had moved out of my parents house about 5 months prior with my boyfriend at the time. 4 months after I moved in with him he cheated. I refused to move back in with my parents (a pride thing) and began renting a room from what I thought was a friend. I was drinking (and only 17) heavily, and the alcohol being supplied by that older âfriendâ. I was drinking so heavily I remember nights where I would just lay on the floor too drunk to get up and go to bed.Â
Fast forward to March of 2014. I made the decision to move to another county to live with my grandparents while I got my shit together and got my high school diploma. On March 2nd 2014 while moving I was in a bad car accident on the interstate and it totaled my vehicle. I was now jobless, carless, and having to stay with my parents because I had no way to get to my grandparents with all my belongings and expect them to drive me around.
Fast forward to March 25th of the same year. A family friend offered to cosign to help me get a car and I would have to make monthly payments. I was only 18 and didnât really think about how difficult it would be for me to pay a $350 car payment every month on part time and still working on my HS diploma through Adult High School. But regardless I got the car and it got me to my grandparents and initially that was great and I was feeling a bit better about life. On April 8th of 2014 I began talking to my now husband on OkCupid. I was wary but we met and had a date on the 12th and he asked me to be his girlfriend on the 14th in the MOST adorable way. He said âI have a job opening and I was wondering if youâd want it.â Of course, I took that job happily. Now this guy...he paid for me to get gas and I didnât even ask. I was low, but I had plans to ask my grandparents for some help to get me through the school week. But he straight up looked at my gas needle and told me to drive over to the gas station and filled my tank up. I was in shock!
Fast forward to the last weekend of June in 2014. My mother asked if I would house sit and watch our family friendâs son for the weekend. I agreed and asked if Josh would come with me. He agreed and we had an awesome weekend, even took the kid to Carowinds and spent the entire day. That night, exhausted, we laid in bed and he asked me to move in with him. I couldnât say no. It felt just right. On July 1st I moved in with him with my only belongings, a suitcase of clothes and my laptop. Itâs all I had to bring to the relationship and he had a house and everything else we needed.Â
Now the next year was filled with a lot of hard times. We both werenât making much money and I ended up having to give the car back because I just couldnât make those payments. I got depressed again and began drinking again. Josh pulled me out of that and told me that I couldnât behave that way. At first I was offended! However, I wasnât even old enough to be doing what I was doing and he was actually right.
He proposed after I got my shit straight and it was in the middle of the night at 3am after we had went for a random drive. I was standing in the dining room fiddling with my shoes and I turned around and there he was. Illuminated by the hallway light and on one knee. He had my promise ring in his hand and asked me to marry him. I didnât care that it wasnât some diamond ring, all that mattered was that this man, flawed as he was, and flawed as I am, was asking me to be with him for life. I said yes!
We got married in September of 2015 in the courthouse with our parents, and my grandmother present. I could never have asked for a better way.
About 4 months later, shortly after my birthday, I got a call from my mom. My step father, who I very much consider/considered my father had had cancer found in his liver. I was absolutely devastated, but my mother assured that it seemed localized and he should be fine after some chemo and radiation.Â
3 months after that it was found out that during a surgery to place a stent on his pancreas, they found the true cause of the cancer in his liver. He pancreas was ate up with it and it had spread. Things began to look very dim.
1 year later on May 21st my mother called me to say that he was passing. She couldnât even shower because he would try and get up to do something, and would fall and hurt himself. I broke. I was working full time but left suddenly to help my mother, with my husbandâs support. He drove down there every night after work (a 1 and a half hour drive) to see me and make sure I was ok. Over the course of the next three days I witnessed someone who I didnât recognize slowly dying. It was the MOST painful thing I had ever been a part of. My mother had to let me use her xanax just so that I could stay calm throughout the day and not be going crazy.
On the morning of May 24th my mother and I awoke at 6 am to give my step father a dose of his pain medication (essentially just keeping him in a pain med coma) and then we laid back down, me sleeping on the love seat, her on the big couch, and my step dad in his hospice issued bed that they brought to her home. I woke back up around 8am and noticed that I no longer heard the raspy breathing that I had been falling asleep to the last few nights. I knew something was wrong. I got up and put my finger under his nose, nothing. Felt his cheek, cold. All I remember saying was âMama...heâs gone. Mamaâ and after that that day is kind of a blur.Â
2 days later my mother had went to run a race to calm her mind and I stayed behind at the house. Her friend came into the room and uttered words I never thought I would hear. My step brother (who I very much considered to be my brother) had been found unresponsive that morning and was rushed to the hospital. When we arrived at the hospital we found out he had gotten into my step fatherâs pain meds and took some very serious medication that stopped him breathing. 2 days later on the day of my step fatherâs funeral, we were informed that he did not make it. In the span of one month. I had lost my Grandfather on the 2nd. My step father on the 24th. And my step brother on the 28th. Devastated doesnât even begin to cover how I felt.
I felt empty. I didnât know how to function. The night of the funeral for my step father my husband came to take me home and I remember just sitting on the bed, unable to stop crying. How could I go on after 3 of my family members were lost so quickly? I couldnât function.Â
Eventually I returned to work and I wasnât myself. I was smoking so much pot at the time that it was insane how much we were spending. But, my husband went along with it for a while.Â
Come September of 2017 my husband said we needed to stop buying it. It was a money pit and was distracting me from how I was feeling. He told me that he could tell I hadnât been myself in months. I reluctantly agreed and was literally the biggest bitch for over a month while I got over not having my crutch anymore. He stayed strong through those months and I could not have been more grateful.Â
January of 2018 I decided that I would start a Phlebotomy course because I knew my step father would be happy for me to be in the medical field. I slowly started to get myself back. I was no longer going to sit and be sad because none of those family members I lost would have wanted that for me. They would have wanted me to be happy and to make something of myself.
I finished that course with amazing grades.Â
Fast forward to this year. My husband and I started trying for a baby in January. We went through some things just prior to starting trying and the trust between us was not great. Sometimes I wonder if we should have started trying on the heels of that. But through many fights, and discussions where we were both in tears, we made it through that distrust and started to trust one another again.Â
In August I sat, once again, peeing on so many sticks I was near bankrupting us just from buying them lol! But this time...I saw a line. I swore I did! So, at 5am I texted my mother and she confirmed what I saw. It took us 8 months, but finally, after so many tears after getting my period, I am pregnant!
On Saturday Iâll be 13 weeks and even though I know itâs not likely, Iâm still terrified something is going to be wrong with my baby. But regardless of that, my Doctor reassures me that me and baby are healthy.
The point of all this is simply put. It gets better.
You have to go through the shittiest things in life sometimes before you get to the good stuff. There are ups and downs and sometimes you just donât know how to do it anymore, but you HAVE to figure it out. Itâs hard but you can do it and the rewards on the other end are so worth it.Â
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