A Crack in the Facade

My journey to wholeness began about 19 years ago. I had grown up believing that if I tried hard, worked harder, exuded perfection I would finally be okay, be acceptable. I worked my way into near insanity. I was filled with resentment, my ego raged and I was the queen of judgement. I lived in fear that someone might see through my highly polished facade. It felt safer to keep everyone away than to create genuine relationships where my secrets might get out. My entire existence felt like a house of cards, all it would take is for one small mishap to bring it crashing down. I was angry and exhausted. I was overwhelmed and living day to day in survival mode. Sadly, I didn’t know it. The way I felt was my norm, when life was calm I would stir the pot. That is where I was comfortable. If there wasn’t some sort of crazy I was waiting for the shoe to drop. A little over 19 years ago I had my first child. This in and of itself turned my world upside down. He rarely seemed to sleep and cried if not held, I was exhausted. Each day in my exhaustion and fear of not being a good enough mom, I tried to bond, to connect. The days and nights blurred together, each day in my exhaustion I would take pictures of him. Something, anything to help me get through the hours alone and to feel like he was really mine. Then, in a blink, he left this world and left my emotions in tatters. At six weeks he died, just like that. He was healthy, developing as he should and within my first couple of hours away from him he took his last breath and his body shut down. They call it SIDS. My life spun out of control in the months to follow. The grief and despair I felt were outside of my control. I would spend my days numb, alone and crying, I didn’t know how to let go of the pain nor did I think I deserved to. I didn’t know how to allow my pain to flow so I held onto it, it was how I knew I was still living. This would be the first crack in my facade. In the years to come that crack would grow and there would be new cracks. Those cracks would lead to a new path of living, of believing and eventually to healing.