I could barely make out the stars blanketing the midnight sky through my tears. The heavy stream of salty tears seeped in every crevice of my face, down to my quivering lips. It was 12:13 am as I sat in my lone car outside of the local grocery store with the parking lot lights dimmed. My mind couldn’t figure out how the hell I got here. And how the hell I was going to leave without retrieving the money “he” was asking for. 

He who stumbled drunk to my doorway fifteen minutes before. The look of deep anger glazed over his eyes, the kind that alcohol enraged even further. His once kind ocean blue-eyes turned into a storm of hatred that he navigated in my direction. I’ve been used to fighting against the storm, knowing how to calm it or avoid the most damage although I never could get off damage-free.

My tiny hands tightly gripped the three hundred dollars I had pulled at the ATM with my debit card. That was all the cash I could pull in a day. Five hundred dollars short. He wouldn’t leave my place until he got his money. He wasn’t much of a liar. I wondered if I would have preferred him lying instead of being emotionally and mentally abusive. He never was physically abusive in our two-year relationship but I didn’t want to test him now. Everyone has a breaking point and the heartless look in his bloodshot eyes made me believe he was inches away from his. 

I’m ready to tell my whole story instead of hiding behind it. These three paragraphs are the start of a restart of a book I wrote and thought I finished seven years ago but randomly came calling back to me a week ago. The book was not done and had more to say. 

Seven years ago, I wrote a 78,000-word memoir called “The First Ten Years: A Complicated Love Story” that never saw the light of day. That hurts to say. I wanted to share the suffering, heartbreak, and pain I felt so others could feel that they weren’t alone. It’s so often that many of us pour our heart and soul into a project only to stuff it safely away so no one else can see. We are afraid that others will see us only to judge us. It was better to not arm them with words they could use against you.

I wasn’t strong enough back then to face whatever comes from showing my true self and telling my whole story. I am now. But it took a lot of fucking work to get here. These are the words and memories that are resonating back to me and I have to honor them. Each of us has many untold stories to be told and by sharing mine, I hope it gives you some strength and courage to share yours one day too.  

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