#1.2: The Facade

From the outside looking in though, my life was starting to look like a success story.

I mustered up the courage to leave a marriage that I knew I couldn’t stay in, my mom kicked cancer’s butt, I started a new career, and moved into my first apartment by myself, in northern VA. One that luxuriously came with a doorman, a rooftop pool, and stunning views of the nation’s capitol. 

Apartment Rooftop -Arlington, VA- June 2011

I lived a block from my best friend and was quickly accepted into her friend group. Our weeks were filled with hard work and hard play. Weekly happy hours became the norm. Frequenting the same weekend hot spots became an unspoken rule. 

On the one hand, those were some of the best days of my life up until that point.

I was making it on my own. I was finding myself. I was successfully climbing the corporate ladder. In all sense of the phrase, I was young, wild, and free.

On the other hand, those were some of the hardest days of my life up until that point.

I was grieving the loss of the life I had envisioned for myself. I was struggling with the stigma of being divorced at such a young age. I feared being alone even for a minute to the point where I would stay the night at my best friend’s house or travel down to see my family for day trips just so that I didn’t have to be alone with my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions.

It was easier to drown them with my girlfriends over a Bacardi & diet or a redbull & rail vodka, while we closed down Clarendon Grill, Carpool, and the like.

New Years Eve, 2012

It was just as easy to hide them behind every promotion at work, every high rating on evaluations, every opportunity to prove I was valuable. That I was worthy. That I could be somebody. 

Deep down, however, all I ever wanted was to be a mother. To have a family. This career. This life. It was all just a placeholder.

I wasn’t ready to date, but again, it was a distraction. So I joined Match.com. I dreaded the nights that I had dates lined up - yes, the free meals were nice especially at the time when I was spending entirely too much on my rent - but, it was all a façade.

Every date and every night out was just a way to keep myself busy. Preoccupied. On the one hand having fun, on the other hand burying everything that I didn’t want to feel.

Eventually I went into counseling. I think that it was good for me. I know for certain it helped me through those days. But, if I’m being truly honest, I don’t really remember much about it. I think a defense mechanism for me over the years was just to block out the things that are too hard to remember. 

But, I kept pushing through. I kept fighting. Even when I wasn’t putting the Lord first in my life, I knew that He had a plan and that I had to rest in that fact; except “rest” was the very thing that I wouldn’t allow myself to do.

I often do wonder, how many missteps, mistakes, and wrong-turns could have been avoided had I just surrendered sooner.

My day of surrender was coming, but it wasn’t here yet…