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There’s this notion that most people born under the Cancer horoscopes are natural born cry babies….well I must be the exception to the rules because crying is my biggest pet peeve. What people will not acknowledge about cancers is the fact that even though we may be emotional (I’ll admit, I’m emotional, just not a crier) we are natural born nurturers and lovers. The greatest love you will ever know will come from a Cancer or maybe even a Pisces, but I’m a Cancer so let’s focus on the Cancer aspect. Anyway, back to what I was saying, cancers are nurturers, whether we want to or not we tend to fall into the motherly role in our friendships and even relationships. We become the go to counselor for people that do not believe in or want to deal with real counseling. We are often strong, independent women with a confidence level on borderline selfish. Because we are generally seen as strong many fail to realize the toll being everyone’s nurturer really is. It’s tiresome and most times than not, it weighs us down. It’s weakens us (although we will probably never admit it). For every person, we nurture or assist, we lose a piece of ourselves become we genuinely care and we take on other’s issues as if they are our own. I remember when I was a columnist for an urban magazine during the peak of police brutality and police murders of people of color. Almost every day there were a new police shooting to write about. It got so bad that I would literally dream of police brutalities in my sleep. I had to stop writing about it so much because it was affecting my personal life too much. Although we love helping others, it can get overbearing and then you need strength, but because everyone sees you as a strong person, you rarely get the love, support, and help that you need to get through whatever you are dealing with. So you learn to hide it, mask your weaknesses so the world won’t see you as anything other than strong.

Maybe it’s just me, though.

Transparency has never been my thing. Not that it’s healthy but I don’t like bothering people with my issues even though I have some wonderful friends and family that I know would help me. Through the years though, I have learned that pretending to be strong when you are not is stupid and tiresome. I learned that being transparent can really help you as well as help others. This last year has been extremely hard for me. I went through so much and I was ashamed to admit to myself let alone someone else, so I bottled it all inside until I just could hold anything else and I had to release it. It took baby steps and something I had to start back over at that first step but I am now in a better place and better able to get the help I need when I am weakened. So, here is my moment of transparency, I hope it empowers or help someone else.

My Life

October 2018, my life drastically changed. I left my husband of 13 years (been together total of 20 years) and moved out on my own. Scared can’t even begin to describe what I felt. I was more than fearful. I was petrified of how to do it mentally, physically, etc. All I knew is that I had three children (two of which are girls) looking up to me, so I couldn’t afford to breakdown. I couldn’t afford to give up. I had to keep pushing even though majority of the time, I just wanted to quit. Without the help of God, I never would have made it through that time in my life. I was resentment, hurt, and in constant pain. I was so sick mentally that it started taking a toll on my health from panic attacks to night terrors to chest pains to knee pain. I was literally killing myself holding in what I was dealing with. It wasn’t until I got heavy into praying and meditating and reading my Bible and religious self-help books that I started to see a shift in my life. I was so busy blaming my husband for everything that I didn’t see my part in all of it, which simply was I ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN! For a while, it hit me hard, realizing that I unconsciously lowered my standards and accepted mistreatment in fear of being alone or being criticized for not being a good wife. I had to learn to forgive myself and move on and trust me it wasn’t easy. For someone that hates to cry, I found myself crying all time. I would sit in my car at night and cry my eyes out and come in the house like everything was fine. I would take long drives and cry. Lock myself in the bathroom and cry. Turn on the faucet or shower, so my kids wouldn’t hear. Things got so bad, the tears would try to come in my not so private moments. I could be out and see a married couple and my eyes would fill with tears and I’d have to rush to a bathroom or leave the area. It got hard to visit my mom or interact with my church family in fear that someone would notice what was wrong.

Somehow, I learned to let go of resentment. I stopped playing the blame game. I stopped seeing the wrong that others were doing to me and learned to focus on my reaction to those wrongdoings and things started to look up and get a little better. I was moving on with my life as best as I could until my husband told me, he had a girlfriend, Actually, I heard it from my children first, which hurt like hell because first, you didn’t have the decency to tell me yourself. Secondly, you already introduced our child to her and lastly, she was a factor in our marriage before. All of that, drugged me back to resentment, briefly. Oh yes, I was pissed. I was hurt and I damn sure let him know. Fuck all that self help crap. My heart was literally broken. I was really broken. I had my moments of breaking down and even as I write this, tears are forming, remembering all the craps I dealt with at that time. I eventually got back on my path to peace and I became at ease with him moving on with his life because it seemed that our journey was truly over. Hell as a nurturer, I even found myself on occasions giving him advice on how to make and keep her happy via text never in person because he would have saw the tears welled up in my eyes. I know that’s crazy ass hell, but I didn’t want to be the bitter baby momma. If he was ready to move on, I wasn’t going to be the one to sabotage it. But little did I know it was in those moments that my husband began to see something in me, that he didn’t see in our marriage or something that I lost along the way in our marriage. Whereas we couldn’t stand each other sight, we managed to be around each and talk and laugh again. That did wonders for us both and our children who throughout this entire ordeal was trapped in the middle of trying to please both parents. It was as hard for them as it was for me. Anyway, you never know if you are completely over something until you are tested on that very thing. Tests came our way and surprisingly, we passed, but as we passed our tests, it created issues elsewhere. The more things got better between my husband and I, the worse things got between my husband and his girlfriend until they were done and we agreed to give our marriage another try. Most wives would have been happy at the husband leaving the side chick, homewrecker, etc. But not me! Deep down, I was pissed. I felt like he didn’t want me, he just wanted to save face. I felt as if I was his safe choice. I was convenient. Resentment reared its ugly head and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt as if I was losing my independence, my voice, and the very essence of what made me me. I didn’t want to be anyone’s second choice, so I rebelled. I fought against everything he was trying to do, not realizing that he was really trying to be better. Things got tense again, I shutdown and started back internalizing things until I felt myself slipping back into depression and giving into my fears and I decided to dive back into the Word, meditating and praying. It’s only been one month but we are getting stronger as husband and wife every day, but it wasn’t until I acknowledged and faced the issues in my life and worked on me as an individual did I understand how to truly overcome.