Last Year At This Time...What A Transition

I fight with Facebook a lot. Some days it is trigger city and other days I can appreciate it. I've taken it, and messenger completely off my phone all for the better. As I've said before, I much prefer Instagram, as I think Instagram is a more positive environment for someone like me, but this morning Facebook for "On This Day," brought up selfie from a year ago. Creepily enough I'm wearing the exact same shirt but now I have much longer hair. I'm also not nearly as tired looking. This is the comparison shot:

                             This day, 2018                    Today, 2019


I spent some time last week discussing comparisons of some then and now. What my marriage was then, versus now. Behavior then, versus now. We were spanning all different kinds of time frames and I said that comparing like that could be okay, even helpful in some arenas, but was also huge trigger territory.

That picture was taken just before the beginning of the worst being turned into something good, but something I could have never foreseen. In March of 2018, I tried to stand up for myself and take some of my life back. I knew I had lost my way and decided it was time to be a better mother, better person, and better household pillar, to say the least.

I was stopped dead in my tracks with every indication of "No," without being told the actual words "no." My efforts were detoured completely and I felt defeated and inferior. 

I had planned to do two hours of boot camp each morning to get back into shape when my husband decided to take a second job. As finances will always cause us friction, his reasoning was, "we always need more money, you're always saying we can't afford stuff." It was not an unfair point, but I was reluctant. I sucked up all my opposition and upset, all of my judgments about the decision and negative feelings and said "okay."

It was the worst month and a half we've had in a long time, and one that completely broke me down to the point of making unfair choices and decisions, and of taking a stand for my daughter, and for myself. 

In that month I watched my husband struggle and spiral out of control. Suddenly the new job meant he needed a car. Suddenly his friend had a car for him to procure at a fair price, which wasn't worth any form of "waiting" or negotiation. It was "take the car to my mechanic, get the okay" and drive away with new wheels into the sunset. We had successfully car-shared for 9 years and couldn't afford two vehicles, but this wasn't up for discussion in all this. For me, it was the cart before the horse and I was internally screaming and physically sobbing through the stress.

The car, to me, was the catalyst. Once the taste of freedom came, it was too good to be true and I watched as it snowballed. His second job was from 6AM to 12PM then he'd work from 1PM to midnight or later. This was all some seemingly weird power play to prove his worth at his current job, but to threaten that he could leave at any time.

Because he had to work at 5AM I was stripped of my Boot Camp routines, which crushed me. I'd been taken away from having any time to work out. My trainer knew how much I needed Boot Camp and let me come in from 4:45AM to 5:15AM before anyone else really arrived to complete the daily workout. It was brutal. And I missed normalcy. I did everything alone from getting my daughter fed and ready, making lunches, dropping her off and then some. It was difficult, lonely and had levels of unfriendly feelings coming at me regularly. 

I think I cried at least once a day. When he got the car I had to hide my meltdown. It wasn't that he wasn't "allowed" to have one. It was that we couldn't afford it, even with a second job. And not being able to have that rational conversation was upsetting to me. 

I remember taking that selfie and feeling so tired and broken and just thinking, "Okay so this is just my life now. This is what's in front of me." True to form I cried in private and hid everything away. My mom was helping us with transportation before the new-to-him car appeared and was also complaining and frustrated with everything, taking it out on me. 

I hit my final wall at 3AM on a dark night with my little girl right next to me telling me it would all be okay. I'd hit the point of "shit or get off the pot," for lack of a better phrase. I stood up, firm and wasn't about to hear "no" this time. I put my foot down and finally had my say. 

The second job faded as soon as he got a salaried position at his current job, the means to an end I guess. It was then that I took my life back. In May, I set up new childcare for the summer, which would involve hubby taking my daughter every morning, and he'd never taken her to school or childcare before.
I then commissioned my mom to do two evenings a week allowing me to hit the new gym I'd signed up for, in addition to my boot camp being back in full swing.

I look at that picture of me being a tired, mom and soldier and I feel so bad for 2018 Alison. Man, you went through some shit, and mostly alone. My soul looks beaten to hell in that selfie, but my head was still held high and the ferocity was waning. Damn did I prevail, though.

It was honestly more than just that month, it was so many years coming to fruition in the culmination of one, really horrible month. It was all very well dressed in "okayness." It was the epitome of my life as I knew it and I just had that Queen Daenerys Targaryen moment of "I'm going to break the wheel." If I could have used my dragons to set things on fire, I would have. It was time for the "new world."

What's even better is this "new world," and new cycle with a broken wheel rather than a stopped one, is still so new. It often feels new and fragile. But you look at that picture of last year versus this year and not just the hair has changed. Okay, yes I also got glasses, but there is a part of me that can't help see the transition within me. Like, look at the ferocity coming back and that air of resilience; everything I've been writing about!

I've been feeling mentally heavy and exhausted lately but it pales in comparison to last year. What an amazing reminder! Think of what I've overcome and look at the growth outside of the hair length! It's kind of impressive! I'm not saying this to brag or gloat, I'm just saying that we often don't realize it until we see a selfie like that. It's hard to see such change until these things happen to fall onto our "timeline," or "timehop" or whatever.

Since Friday I've struggled with staying grateful and just how wobbly I've felt with general life goings on. That selfie coming up, is just such a gift. It showed me that I am in fact progressing as a work in progress and that while I've felt so impotent in my ability to speed things up and keep pushing, I'm working at it better than I think I am.

A year really can do a lot for a person. You see those quotes and pin them and post them but no, LOOK, just look at that picture again. A year can do more than you can ever imagine. I'm not even about to say "things are just so much better now." We are far off from blanket statements like that, but I can say that the growth and transition is palpable, and I'm so glad I saw it in the flesh more accurately. 

For those of you feeling stuck or like you haven't accomplished what you thought you should, comb through some pictures and it may help you see the transition. It's not all cupcakes and rainbows. I'm not healed, cured or "everything is perfect now," but I'm much better off. Sure I'm still as sassy as ever but I really think the then and now says it all.