It had been a few months since I graduated from college. I had no job, no place to live, and I was forced to move back in with my parents. This was not supposed to be Grace the Great’s life. Grace the Great was smart and successful. She had plans to be the best of the best. She was going to make a lot of money and leave her broken childhood behind.
Living at home was probably the worst thing for me at this point in my life. It was a constant reminder of how awful my past was, and it made me feel like I couldn’t escape from it. This wasn’t rock bottom, because I hadn’t exactly done anything to get myself there. Instead, I was just in a deep state of depression. And dealing with my feelings at that time was something I just couldn’t do. So instead, it was easier to drink. I leaned on alcohol the way I should have leaned on a therapist. Then I met Thomas.
Thomas was just what I needed to feel better about myself. He had also just gotten out of a long-term relationship, and we both needed someone else to distract us from our pain. We were each other’s rebounds. This, of course, is exactly how every healthy relationship starts.
Thomas was a few years older than me. He had a good job and lived in an apartment by himself. Only he can tell you what he saw in someone like me. I guess he thought I was pretty and maybe he liked my personality. I was pretty goo at hiding the brokenness. He actually helped me figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I applied to grad school (not med school), and things started to look up again.
I’m sure it’s no surprise that our relationship didn’t last. Two people who hadn’t dealt with their previous breakups can only stay together for so long before things fall apart. What’s the saying? Your relationship can only be as good as the weakest person? Or something like that. I was by far the weakest person, but we both needed time to heal.
We would eventually find our way back to each other, and after a couple years of dating, we got married. I wasn’t any healthier emotionally, but I was definitely happier. Thankfully, I didn’t feel the need to use alcohol as a crutch anymore. I still didn’t have very healthy habits when it came to drinking – I usually ended up drinking too much when I drank, and I drank more often than I should have. But I certainly wasn’t an alcoholic. I was just having fun. I was in my twenties, and that’s what people my age did.
I continued on this way for a while. Thomas and I bought our first house. I finished grad school and got my first “real” job – a job I actually really liked. Things were going well. Our marriage wasn’t the best, but it was good enough I suppose. We had plenty of fights, mostly when we had been drinking. We both had the expectation that the other person was supposed to satisfy our every need. Love was earned, and it wasn’t unconditional. This wasn’t too big of an issue for me though. After all, I was still Grace the Great. I was a Stepford wife and also held down a full-time job. Any complaints otherwise were unwarranted and completely false. (For those of you who are wondering, I am being completely sarcastic and am actually laughing at myself when I think back to how conceited I was.) We went to church on Sundays, but all of the sermons seemed to be directed at Thomas, because he was obviously the problem and the one who needed to learn how to be a better Christian. I will talk more about my faith journey later, but during this period of my life, I felt as though I was the role model of a Christian woman. God was there to answer my requests, and if things were going well in my life, I kind of forgot that he was there.
Thomas and I decided it was time to have children. After all, it only made sense that we should bring children into our family instead of working on our marriage first. I got pregnant with our first son, and things were great. We were living close to my parents. (By this time, I had stuffed all of those awful feelings about them so deep down that I actually forgot about a lot of it.) I had a decent relationship with my parents at this point, and I was so excited that they would be close enough to help with the baby on a regular basis.
Then one day, when I was about 7 months pregnant, Thomas called me. “I was just talking to my boss, and they are going to put me on the fast track to partner and give me a really nice moving bonus if we move to Florida.” I was devastated. Florida? We don’t know anyone in Florida. How am I supposed to take care of a newborn in Florida? This wasn’t how I had planned it. I couldn’t do this. I wouldn’t do this. We were staying put.
But then he got the actual offer, in writing, from his company, and it was just too good to pass up. I knew he had to take it. So we were going to move to Florida. Thomas would move down shortly after Thomas Junior was born, and TJ and I would move down a couple months later. I didn’t want to believe it. I stuffed it down along with all of the other feelings I kept hidden inside of me. I was still getting ready for TJ’s birth, so I put all of my focus on that. Thomas dealt with all of the moving stuff. He set up the movers, put our house on the market, found a house down in Florida for us to move into. I wanted nothing to do with that. I was going to make it as difficult as possible, and maybe he would get overwhelmed and change his mind. So Thomas focused on moving, I focused on TJ, and that’s how things were up until TJ was born.
I was SO excited to finally meet our son. The anticipation was growing by the hour. After what felt like a lifetime, TJ was born. We finally saw his tiny hands and feet and his adorable eyes with those incredibly long eyelashes. He was absolutely perfect. He was everything I dreamed of. God had delivered, and quite frankly, I felt like I deserved it. I was laying in my hospital bed recovering while Thomas was going back and forth to our house to get it ready for showings. I remember him coming into the room at one point telling me about the offers we received on the house and asking me what I thought. I was in pain and had maybe gotten 2 or 3 hours of sleep the night before. Was he being serious right now? He should be focused on his SON and his recovering wife. But instead he was selling our house, the house I had no desire to leave, and he had the audacity to ask me what I thought? The rest of the hospital stay was a blur.
It was finally time to go home and bring our little miracle to his first house (the house we would be leaving shortly). And I couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital. If I had to talk to one more person about how good the hospital food was or how many ounces the baby ate, I was going to scream. So we got packed up, and they helped me into the wheelchair, and I suddenly felt this sense of dread. Wait, you’re just going to let me take this baby home? The doctor isn’t coming with us? Did I miss the instruction manual or something? I’ve never done this before. I have no idea what I’m doing. Wait! Not yet! I need help!
But no one stopped us. We left the hospital and drove home, and that was that. I distinctly remember walking inside and sitting on the couch with this newborn I had just met. This baby I had spent 9 months waiting for. And rather than feeling excited and the happiest I had ever been, I felt just like I had when I moved back home with my parents after college. I was empty inside. I was depressed. I felt alone. This wasn’t what it was supposed to feel like. I was supposed to be happy. But I sat down on that couch, and I felt a physical sense of darkness surrounding me. It was so dark that I could feel it.
I needed a drink.
