I’m guilty of overusing the word “surviving“. I survived work. I survived a trip to buy groceries on a the night before a snowstorm. It’s just hyperbole for “I made it through without having to slap a bitch.” Sometimes I feel guilty for using the word in that context. There’s so many people surviving their own battles, much bigger than my a trip to Walmart or impatient patients.
That’s not to say I haven’t faced my own battles.
I’ve survived my dysfunctional family. My biological father kidnapped me. My dad (technically stepfather #1) was a piece of work in his own ways. But… other people had or have it worse.
I made it through high school unscathed. I was bullied for a while in middle school, and constantly worried I wasn’t cool enough to be popular or smart enough to be with the smart kids. But…. the bullying stopped and I had largely stopped caring what others thought of me by the time I graduated. Some kids don’t get that.
Four years ago, I survived what probably could have been the end of my marriage. I survived finding a condom in my bedroom trashcan, I survived reading emails where my husband told someone that he’d like to fuck his wife, and another where he asked an escort if she had any costumes she could wear. But… I made the effort to fix what I could fix between us, and we pushed on.
Two years ago, I survived an early morning police raid and my husband’s arrest. Twelve days later, I survived a night at the local prison to bail him out. I stood by through a year of uncertainties about what would happen to him, and survived a year of uncertainty over what would become of us before really deciding there would even be an US to worry about. I survived.
This morning, I looked around upstairs at the nearly emptied “gym room”. There’s not too much left up there, mainly the furniture I’ll sell. I’m purging my life of everything I don’t need or want or just can’t keep. And as much as I wish things were different, they’re not. I have to continue The Great Sort, and eventually I’ll leave this little white house with the pink door and the succulents by the steps.
I’m surviving.
