Borrowed Time

Gratitude can be hard to come by.  There’s so much that can be taken for granted when we are far enough removed from a situation or experience to the point that we can easily compartmentalize things and bury them away like unwanted trinkets in the attic. Sometimes even what’s unwanted can’t leave us. It lingers. Haunts us. Stalks us. Hell, even bullies us despite years of distance, changes, personal growth, and evolution. I thought my own evolution into the woman I am today would protect me from my trauma wounds but that was just as much of a fantasy as the life I had planned out in my early twenties with a man I thought was my twin flame and forever. 

Forever could have been the case back in 2011. Either a handful of pills with a vodka chaser or his finger on the trigger of his prized handgun were going to be the tools of my premature demise. By his hand or my own I almost wasn’t going to make it to my 24th birthday and would have died believing what we had, what he was showing me, was love. Although they say love can make you do crazy things, love does not cause you to hurt yourself or others. It doesn’t compel you to bully, manipulate, terrorize, or lay unwanted hands where they don’t belong. 

Trauma bonding brought us together, made us closer, and laid the foundation for the belief that what we conquered from our pasts could help us make a better future – together. We talked about marriage, kids, buying a home; all the kinds of things forging a forever union dares you to dream of. However, that same trauma rooted in our pasts quickly made its way into the present and I started living a new hell I didn’t know could exist. I stayed. I endured. I quickly came undone and became a mere shell of myself… Broken down into shards and laying across the sand as I took waves of emotional, physical, and psychological poundings from a man I started to love almost purely out of fear. 

I sit here and look at my life today. I can’t lie and say that I have the gratitude that I should every day that I get up. There are days I berade myself thinking I’m not accomplished enough, I’ve not made enough of myself, or that I’ve fallen into a mundane stupor with not much to show other than a vast collection of shoes and a couple of degrees.  Guilt does creep in over these thoughts but I have to actively remind myself that despite finding freedom in the spring of 2012, healing wasn’t instant and is a constant journey. It takes years of honesty and acceptance and, in most cases (including my own), extensive therapy to undo the damage that years of domestic violence and sexual assault causes. 

Despite the mental offsets of depression, I know very well I have so much to be grateful for. So much life to live and embrace that I never thought I’d have the opportunity to experience. Sometimes the pangs of survivor’s guilt cloud my discernment and I still grapple with feeling like I don’t and haven’t deserved this second shot at life, but I try to remind myself daily now that yes, I do. Like Kendrick said, ‘I deserve it all’ and I know I owe it to myself to stop suppressing my truth and living in fear of my past.  With this borrowed time and as I move fearlessly into the future, I’ve decided to create a safe space for myself to share my truth with the intention to not only heal myself but maybe give some hope, comfort, and strength to whoever may need the tools to survive and get a second chance too. 

Thank you for stopping by and reading my preamble as I prepare to share my story of survival. 

With Alofa – Tati